Classic shard.

[Guido_LS]

Wait, you said that no...the original penalties were not enough. Then you said that stat loss on death...yes. Then you said no to extra penalties...but you listed extra penalties under #1???

And then you said this...




I don't understand your stance here. I am not saying I disagree with what you are saying, just that you are conveying two different messages.

His stance is that all this discussion is nothing but wasted breath - his 3 prior posts were about how stupid we were for even considering this a possibility. And I think my paraphrase is actually somewhat milder than his original posts.

 

[Evlar]

Heh, heres one for you folks:

Control slots and pet bonding: yes or no

I vote No.

You mean I could role-play the pied-piper again?

Hell yes!!

 

[Longest Journey]

You mean I could role-play the pied-piper again?

Hell yes!!

So....you want control slots?

 

[Guido_LS]

Heh, heres one for you folks:

Control slots and pet bonding: yes or no

I vote No.

This is a multi-part question, regardless of your finite answer possibilities.

Control slots -

For Mages, no. That situation is already governed by mana, and given that there will be no powerscrolls, a screen full of EV's isn't likely to be a problem

For Tamers - yes, but not in the way it currently exists. The way it currently exists, each pet has a value, supposedly based on power. In a PvP atmosphere, this is of dubious value, at best. I still contend that in a PvP situation, I can kill as quickly, if not more so, with 5 frenzied Ostards as joe blow can with his dragon/mare combo.

My suggestion would be that control slots = a flat number of pets, and not based on some arbitrary number per creature. 5 sounds like a good, all around number - if someone wants to take the chance trying to control 5 dragons/WW's/mares, more power to them. It wouldn't break my heart to see them become lunch. But I can see the disaster that would ensue if someone were to come into town with 10 WW's in tow, and they all went wild...

Bonding - this is a sore one for me - without it, it makes at least one skill basically worthless (veterinary). You can heal just as well with a mage casting gheal... by the same token, one can reasonably argue that rez'ing another PC via bandages should be taken out as well. It's not a deal breaker regardless, but if someone is going to take out the time to max out 2 of the harder skills to work (taming and vet) and have to have max lore to be effective, there needs to be some type of benefit for that amount of work/dedication.

 

[Evlar]

For those debating the lifespan of UO, if it's in its twilight years, etc... then I would mention the following:

UO has and still does, enjoy arguably the most loyal player base of any MMO. That former players still discuss it, that developers and industry experts still discuss it, suggests to me that it is still very much relevant in todays gaming market.

One thing I would add to that, is there's certainly still a strong niche for "classic" games in general, even to the extent that publishers are falling over themselves to buy the rights to a number of classic titles. That's either to give them the option to re-make them entirely, or to re-release the originals with a few tweaks to run on modern systems.

Look at a few abandonware game sites. Some will display the number of downloads for games that are no longer "owned" by anyone. Some are being downloaded many thousands of times.

Mindful of this and many other indications you can find easily around the internet, I'm of the opinion that an "official" classic option, has every chance of being a good source of revenue for EA/Mythic.

Having mentioned in another thread, that with certainty, the number of former UO players far outweighs the numbers of current subscribers, clearly the first target would be to get former players back in significant numbers. Take advantage of the loyalty that subscribers have shown over the years.

Second target audience is new players. Although you might think that would be the main aim, to my mind that would take considerable publicity, something in recent years that EA hasn't seemed willing to do.

It doesn't have to cost much to get people playing UO though. If significant numbers of former players came back, that in itself would generate interest. Not least on the platform in which this game was designed to work... the internet. Popularity of something is viral. It can spread very quickly. News of renewed popularity for UO is something which would spread very quickly. People will be curious.

I mean, come on... if Rage Against The Machine can beat the annual guaranteed X-Factor offerings to No.1 in the UK charts following an internet campaign... there's hope for anything... right?

 

[Evlar]

So....you want control slots?

I was joking, about the time you could march around with your own mini-army-menagerie of animals following you.

Pet bonding is nice and I see the reasoning behind pet slots, but to be honest, they are little else than an extension of the item based game. Bonding for example, is nothing more than item insurance for a "valued" pet.

I'm quite happy without bonding, because if your pet dies, you've an incentive to go get another. Two challenges in one there to my mind. One to keep the critter alive, another to go tame another if you lose it.

Control slots is the tricky one to answer. I can see the pro's and con's for both arguments. Yes, marching around with a large quantity of pets was novel, as were the benefits in a spawn location or dungeon for a tamer especially. Being a warrior in a dungeon, when all of a sudden, someone pitched up with a load of tames and began hogging everything, wasn't particularly good. I've been in both situations, so see both sides of the coin.

I have to ask, as I never saw examples of it myself that I can remember, but how did this affect PvP for others back then? People still complain about PvP tamers now, but obviously I would imagine a tamer pitching up with a huge amount of pets, was effectively "game over" for any group or individual PvP back then. It still often is when people "strategically" have more than one pet in current PvP.

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

All the more reason why stat loss on death works. It carries with it a substantial penalty. It WILL make players thing twice about whether or not its worth becoming public enemy #1.

I am for stat loss on death I always have been, I was arguing against the stat loss on res.

And what happens when that Alt red dies too? then what? Youre stuck with two dead reds who have stat loss. Are you going to throw a third character onto the fire? Or are you going to go back and wait off your murder counts and rework those two characters back up?

I mean, your alt wasnt invincible, it had to have been killed sometime or another. Even if you could leave the old red character to rot, your alt wont make it forever. Eventually, they're gonna die.

Sure, switching to an alt buys you some time, but eventually, the stat loss is going to catch up with you.

If that happens you are screwed unless you have a third, I never had both of my alts dead at the same time though. Again though I am not arguing against stat loss on death, I have always been for it.

I don't think that it needs to go any further than that however, that's just my opinion on the matter.

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

As to the pet issue, in my opinion it's one or the other, either bonding or slots, I may be the minority on the issue though so it's all up in the air.

 

[Kaivan]

Since we don't yet know what skill gain looks like, it's a bit early to make such a claim. If skill gain is slower as it was in the old days especially as you got closer to gm, then yes it will very much have an effect on net pking, because you will have to factor in the cost of rebuilding those skills as well not just the time, some pks have more wealth than others.

While I don't disagree with this, my personal opinion is that it is a heavy-handed approach to the problem. In these cases, the risk must be at least somewhat proportional to the reward, and punishing all PKs across the board for a problem that is really limited to grief PKing does not speak to a well designed system. Any solution needs to understand the difference between grief PKs and profit PKs and deal with them accordingly. The trick is designing a system that is aware of that kind of difference.

Edit: Forgot about pet slots.

This is a question that can't be answered without knowing how the base taming system worked. As I mentioned earlier on, Taming was changed 5 times between the original release and mid-UOR. It's difficult to asses the effects of control slots without knowing exactly what Taming system is in place.

 

[Unsatisfied]

Again I havnt posted for a couple of pages, untill I read all the new support I just thought I was repeating myself over and over again and I had said what I needed to say...

Unfortunately I have one thing I feel I need to repeat because no one really even seemed to glance at it, or at least reply and even give any feedback to what I was saying. So on the stat loss on death idea that everyone is throwing around...

PK Stat loss on death vs on res - I dont really understand why people are voting towards pk stat loss on death... I thought the whole point to the penalties on pks was to deter rampart pking, stopping people from targetting 100 newbs on a daily basis.

If someone makes a pk that goes out and kills the ammount of people on a massive scale that everyones so concerned with they are eventually going to die... If they have indeed killed 100 newbs the ammount of time that you would have to spend macroing that if is simply recidulous and would 90% of the time end in the person either throwing the character away, or resing and taking the stat loss...

If you implement stat loss on death all your doing is hurting the people who kill a cpl of people for good reasons... Or people who just go after the big kills etc... Those people if there was stat loss on res could then work off their few counts and then res and get on with their game, these are not the pks were trying to severely punnish but if there is stat loss on death then they are being severely punished for merely playing the "pk" role.

If your concern is that the % of skills that are lost when stat loss is taken on res isnt enough, then by all means increase it. But stat loss on death is not the answer.

Just on a quick side note. You will end up with so many people griefing this system also, finding way to give out counts in dodgy circumstances to turn people red and then killing them and giving them stat loss on death...

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

While I don't disagree with this, my personal opinion is that it is a heavy-handed approach to the problem. In these cases, the risk must be at least somewhat proportional to the reward, and punishing all PKs across the board for a problem that is really limited to grief PKing does not speak to a well designed system. Any solution needs to understand the difference between grief PKs and profit PKs and deal with them accordingly. The trick is designing a system that is aware of that kind of difference.

I don't think it matters what the reason for pking is, you choose to enter into that playstyle knowing the risk ahead of time, and while it's true that a pk who isn't a complete grief monkey will generally not be as hated, neither pk will be liked.

The rewards are proportionate again in my opinion, and just speaking as someone who did my own fair share of it, the amount of loot you can take home is pretty substantial for the small amount of time you put into actually pking another player.

 

[Kaivan]

I don't think it matters what the reason for pking is

That will ultimately be the crux of any difference in opinion that players have on this issue. I believe that the reason for PKing someone is of great importance and limiting their actions based on the intent is also important. I can also say that OSI recognized that difference and acted accordingly. This is apparent in the existence of the thieves guild.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

A shard like this is going to attract a relatively large number of former PKs. I think that is a given. What has to be considered here is who else will it attract. I think we have seen too many examples in the past to believe that this shard could sustain itself solely on the participation of PVPers. I fully understand that modern day Fel and Siege are different than what a Classic Shard would be...but why are they different?

They are only different because they have AoS, Siege has some rules of its own, and there are no unwilling victims to speak of. Fel on most shards is essentially empty. Siege...sadly, is the same. If this shard is launched without meaningful consequences to PKing, it will be no different. Maybe some of the ideas are "heavy handed"...but are they as heavy handed as adding Trammel? I think anyone that is not exaggerating for effect will agree that something like stat loss on death is preferable to a Tram/Fel split. If not, then I really have to question why they would even bother with a Classic Shard at all. If you are looking for 100% PvP, why not just stay in Fel on your current shard?

For a Classic Shard to achieve that "classic feel", it is going to require a mix of both non-pvp'ers and pvp'ers.

To those that are asking for little or no consequences to PKing, let me asking you this...

...Who will you PK once all the non-pvp'ers just go back to their regular shards?

This is the primary thing that I feel people need to understand. With no one left to PK, a Classic Shard would just turn into Fel...and Fel is empty pretty much 24/7.

You have to consider something besides your desire to PK everyone you see. That was tried once, and it failed. We can't go back down that particular path again, because we already know exactly where it leads.

 

[spade gt]

For a Classic Shard to achieve that "classic feel", it is going to require a mix of both non-pvp'ers and pvp'ers.

To those that are asking for little or no consequences to PKing, let me asking you this...

...Who will you PK once all the non-pvp'ers just go back to their regular shards?

This is the primary thing that I feel people need to understand. With no one left to PK, a Classic Shard would just turn into Fel...and Fel is empty pretty much 24/7.

You have to consider something besides your desire to PK everyone you see.

Well put. There are too many PKs out there who fail to realize that there is no such thing as a limitless supply of targets. I've seen this time and time again on the various free classic servers I've tried. I also saw it during the first few months of Darkfall, where - just like in many free T2A servers - the so-called "repercussions" for being a red were nothing more than a joke.

I played UO mostly from 1999-2001. I loved having PKs in the game, I loved the risk of being jumped at any point outside of town, I loved hunting reds either by myself or in a group, and I loved the ability to drop a blue healer (at the cost of a murder count) or kill someone's miner to "encourage" them to accept our guild war declaration.

But you need valid, sound restrictions to keep the wolves from killing all the sheep every chance they get. I believe there must be penalties for being an evil red in order to 1) make that choice alluring to people who want to be a full-fledged PK, and 2) keep the griefer PKs in check. Not every PK is, or was, a griefer. But without proper restrictions on murderers, you're only asking for the number of griefers to increase and subsequently the number of non-murderer players to decrease.

A server full of wolves is no fun for anyone, as even they will get bored and quit before long.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Just on a quick side note. You will end up with so many people griefing this system also, finding way to give out counts in dodgy circumstances to turn people red and then killing them and giving them stat loss on death...

They can only do this if someone makes an attack on them first. Usually what they did was get themselves killed elsewhere while still damaged by the other player, thus allowing them to give that player a murder count. This is really only an issue in the case of accidental targeting. A warning gump, if there wasn't one back then, would be a good thing to have here.

The other issue is field spells, Firewalls and Poison Fields. Umm, explosion potions too, I guess. We do need an answer for that. I don't recall if they had anything back then.

Am I forgetting anything besides my obvious lack of memories?

Edit, oh, remember also that players did have a buffer, an allowance of kills per week before they went red. This helps, but can't be counted on for this purpose.

 

[the 4th man]

To be clear I don't believe it will breathe new life into the game either, but it may very well keep the game afloat for a few more years, if anything the franchise itself needs new life, that means a sequel to UO.

I don't want to start a debate about everything that a sequel entails but this game was bled near dry along time ago.

No it wasn't, player mentality was bled dry and filled with mundane expectations.....look at it now...an event is only worth going to if there's a freebie or a handout.

AoS turned UO into todays society. It's a gotta have it world. I find that sick, like some of the armor these guys sell.....only sick meaning what it really means.

A classic shard, in a nutshell, putting aside all the trivial sta loss bs, should be just that, what is was. If it fails, then, hell, they gave it a shot.

If you fear nothing but pk-ism, blame what todays generation has become. The older generation who knew UO as it was is mostly gone. The remaining handful will have to contend with the kill-kill-kill idiots out there.

If, the middle word in life, if it happens, I'll give it a shot....it may or may not hold my attention, and I would not even consider deleting anything else form other shards.

May the devs give you what once was.....no improvements, no changes....a true classic is not tampered with. Ask a 67 GTO.

later

 

[Crimson Crow]

I haven't read the rest of the thread, and I won't be coming back to see if anyone replies to me. I'm just going to say my peace and go.

I want a classic shard. I want it because, in my opinion, Siege Perilous is not fulfilling its role anymore, and has been becoming less and less ideal from AoS onward. This is just my opinion, but I don't think people play Siege to only have one character slot, or to have drastically reduced skill gains, or any of the myriad other difficulty increases present on that shard. Not anymore. I believe people play Siege because they want some measure of relief from the rampant and universal inflation that has set in over time.

And I'm not just talking about monetary inflation, though that is certainly a massive issue by itself (it's pretty much reached a point where making money by looting it is only for newbies and bots). I'm also talking about a more metaphorical form of inflation, one sometimes called power creep. Age of Shadows, Samurai Empire, Mondain's Legacy, and now Stygian Abyss, every last one of them has dramatically boosted the power available to players. This is the phenomenon that gave us the abomination known as "sampire". It's why we've gone from white wyrms to hiryu to cu sidhe to greater dragons. It's why there is literally not a single item slot left that doesn't have magical bonuses associated with it. It's why sentimental value is the only reason to play a human anymore.

Believe it or not, not everyone is happy about all this. I know I'm not. But what are we supposed to do? Sure, we could pretend we still live in the old days, but that's much, much easier to say than to do. Or, we can play Siege. But Siege comes with massive barriers to entry, what with the 1 character maximum, having to spend forever and a day getting skills to competitive levels, etc. etc. And on top of that, Siege doesn't stop people from using the new pets, the new skills, faction artifacts, imbuing (which makes replacing a 70s 100% LRC suit a cinch), gargoyles, and what have you.

Which brings me back to my original point: Siege Perilous no longer even resembles a safe haven from the creeping WoW-ization of UO. Only a classic shard can fulfill that role, which is why I wholeheartedly support the creation of such a shard. The separate issues that have cropped up surrounding this discussion are just that, separate issues, which should be resolved in their own time. The only relevant question is whether or not enough people would play and enjoy a classic shard to justify the expense of creating and maintaining it. And, for my part, I believe that enough would. I only hope that, if I am correct, we don't lose this opportunity anyway because not enough of us spoke up in time. That would be very uncool.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

May the devs give you what once was.....no improvements, no changes....a true classic is not tampered with. Ask a 67 GTO.

So there was no room for improvement on a '67 GTO?

If I buy a '67 GTO, and the left front wheel is out of alignment...and I take it and get it fixed...is the car no longer "classic"?

Of course not.

 

[spade gt]

They can only do this if someone makes an attack on them first. Usually what they did was get themselves killed elsewhere while still damaged by the other player, thus allowing them to give that player a murder count. This is really only an issue in the case of accidental targeting. A warning gump, if there wasn't one back then, would be a good thing to have here.

As long as the blue victim was healed back to full health before they died, they couldn't give you a count. That was kinda funny back then. It was always amusing when someone would accidentally target a blue, or their blade spirit or EV would target a blue, and the caster would try to heal the unintended victim real fast (while they had just turned grey themselves for attacking the blue). I remember a number of guild house fights where I had to frantically heal one of their blues to full real fast before their buddies could kill them and give me a count.

I also remember when a blue friend of mine was hit with an AOE spell and we gated him back to our house to finish him off, in order to give the guild enemy a count. However, in the confusion of having 3-4 different "Do you wish to report this person as a murderer?" gumps pop up upon his death he accidentally reported our friend instead of the guild enemy. Said friend went red when he was really, really wanting to avoid it. Good times, and funny raging over Roger Wilco (the Ventrilo of the old days!).

The other issue is field spells, Firewalls and Poison Fields. Umm, explosion potions too, I guess. We do need an answer for that. I don't recall if they had anything back then.

I don't remember exactly when they added it (it may have already been in place when I started in 1999) but they did, and still do, have an option for that warning gump in the Options menu. You can turn it off, if you want.

oh, remember also that players did have a buffer, an allowance of kills per week before they went red. This helps, but can't be counted on for this purpose.

I've never heard of anything like that. I remember short term (8hrs) and long term (40hrs) murders, with the 5th long term murder making you go red. Didn't matter if you killed five people in one day or spread across a full week, it was determined by how many long term murder counts your character had at any given point.

 

[Unsatisfied]

Am I forgetting anything besides my obvious lack of memories?

I know of people on other shards that have friends hide blue characters inside their house against wall while they sit on their red character, when a player meteor swarms the house they count them on their blue players.


Thanks for replying to part of what I mentioned, unfortunately people seem to have skipped over my points for a 3rd time tho other than you.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

But stat loss on death is not the answer.

Just on a quick side note. You will end up with so many people griefing this system also, finding way to give out counts in dodgy circumstances to turn people red and then killing them and giving them stat loss on death...

I think any system is exploitable. The stat loss on rez system is exploitable as well, because reds will just UM until their counts are done. To me, that is not a disincentive, because they can do this when they sleep, so they don't care.

They will play an alt until time for bed, then log in with the red they are burning counts off on, and will sit by a moongate, or in a house, or whatever.

With stat loss on death, they actually have to suffer the penalty, not just get around it. That's why some posters are so vocal against the idea I feel.

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

No it wasn't, player mentality was bled dry and filled with mundane expectations.....look at it now...an event is only worth going to if there's a freebie or a handout.

I think you misunderstood me, I meant from a cash point of view the game has been pretty much drained, you'll brook no argument from me on the subject of player mentality, we completely agree there.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Thanks for replying to part of what I mentioned, unfortunately people seem to have skipped over my points for a 3rd time tho other than you.

I think people want to avoid new issues raised at some points in this, due to the complications. It's sort of a brain fry, at times.

After all, this is much like trying to settle a UN peace agreement.

But as you are well aware, we are internet gamers. We can fix anything.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Someone sent me a link to a new thread in the Siege area. I posted a couple of times there...but it is basically a thread asking Siege players if they would leave to play a Classic Shard.

Some said yes, some said no, but most said "I would go there to PvP, and do PvM on Siege".

Still think this shard wouldn't attract every PK that ever played the game???

 

[dinanm3atl]

Did everyone really have this sort of hatred/problem with PKs on their servers during T2A? Where were you fighting mobs? Where were you gathering resources? What server?

On Atlantic and sitting in PRIME PK spots like the bottom drag room in Covetous we saw them. We got killed. I didn't find it to be some massive problem that harsher penalties needed to be imposed. Saw more blues in a night than ever saw reds...

I find it to be part of the game. Part of 'life' for this type of game/time period. Just my 2 cents and kind of wanted to get a feel where everyone was coming from.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Did everyone really have this sort of hatred/problem with PKs on their servers during T2A? Where were you fighting mobs? Where were you gathering resources? What server?

On Atlanta and sitting in PRIME PK spots like the bottom drag room in Covetous we saw them. We got killed. I didn't find it to be some massive problem that harsher penalties needed to be imposed. Saw more blues in a night than ever saw reds...

I find it to be part of the game. Part of 'life' for this type of game/time period. Just my 2 cents and kind of wanted to get a feel where everyone was coming from.

I have played Atlantic since day 1. My guild, PoV - Protectors of Virtue, spent most of our time hunting down the PKs on Atlantic. There are probably a few here that killed us, or were killed by us. I know of a couple of posters here that actually were us at one time

The PK hotspots on Atlantic, as I remember them were:

- The Crossroads
- The bridge between Trinisic and Brit
- The entrance to Covetous, and the 3rd level
- The water ell room in Covetous
- The Ogre Lord island in Despise
- The first level of Wrong
- The Orc Fort near Cove
- Both entrances to Trinsic
- The entrance to Ice Dungeon
- The "Point" area to the south of Trinsic
- The area just above the Empath Abby in Yew
- The area around Yew Gate
- The forest west of Yew

Until my account was hacked back in 2003, I had several books filled with the names of known PKs and their associates and alts. I don't remember all of them, not by a long shot...but I remember several. I know it is against the RoC to post player names here, so I won't post them.

For me, and most of my guild, it wasn't "hate" that drove us to hunt down PKs...it was Justice, Valor, Honor, Compassion, Honesty, Sacrifice, Humility, Spirituality...and Honor. That's what made us do what we did. And I don't know if any of those words mean anything in this game anymore, beyond some special move or ability they grant a player...but believe it or not, they once did mean something to some of us.

 

[dinanm3atl]

I started 2 months after release so I was a little late to the party. I didn't go to those places because I knew PKs camping and there is nothing there... cept maybe when you could just BS the lords and sit around and farm hehe

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

There were other spots as well, but those were on our 'rotation'.

I really miss those days. I don't know how much of it was the fact that I was so young, and didn't have to worry about the general pressures of life, and how much was the game.

Uh-oh, you've got me going all nostalgic...well, you and this wine I am enjoying!

Back then, it was like there was a purpose to the game. Not just the purpose of hording items...but a broader purpose.

Not sure if anyone here understands me, but it was so...grand, I guess that is the word.

 

[dinanm3atl]

There were other spots as well, but those were on our 'rotation'.

I really miss those days. I don't know how much of it was the fact that I was so young, and didn't have to worry about the general pressures of life, and how much was the game.

Uh-oh, you've got me going all nostalgic...well, you and this wine I am enjoying!

Back then, it was like there was a purpose to the game. Not just the purpose of hording items...but a broader purpose.

Not sure if anyone here understands me, but it was so...grand, I guess that is the word.

I understand. It used to be 'oh man that guy has a true black set of clothes' and that was sort of the end. Now we have such item driven games that wandering around showing off your 'stuff' AKA how much you have played the game...

THe game was great. It can be great IMO.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

What always made the game great was the people that played it. The game, however, has caused those people to become not so great in last several years.

 

[Renyard Foxenwyle]

- The bridge between Trinisic and Brit

One of the few roleplaying PK's I met was there. He was roleplaying a bandit and collecting tolls on all who passed by the bridge. If you ignored him or wouldn't pay him, he'd attack you. Give him 50 gold though and you were free to use the bridge for an hour. He was pretty good at remembering who paid him too.

 

[Kaivan]

If this shard is launched without meaningful consequences to PKing, it will be no different.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that the traditional PK consequences were relatively effective. They may not be perfectly effective, but they were relatively effective (yes I can say that know that they are effective, don't ask how).

Maybe some of the ideas are "heavy handed"...but are they as heavy handed as adding Trammel? I think anyone that is not exaggerating for effect will agree that something like stat loss on death is preferable to a Tram/Fel split. If not, then I really have to question why they would even bother with a Classic Shard at all.

No, the idea of stat-loss on death is not as heavy-handed as Trammel, but it still doesn't solve the problem in a reasonable fashion. Tripping and breaking your leg is better than tripping and breaking your face open on the pavement, but neither is a desirable option. Also, it doesn't automatically justify itself as being the right result just because it's not as bad as the other possibility.

For a Classic Shard to achieve that "classic feel", it is going to require a mix of both non-pvp'ers and pvp'ers.

To those that are asking for little or no consequences to PKing, let me asking you this...

...Who will you PK once all the non-pvp'ers just go back to their regular shards?

This is the primary thing that I feel people need to understand. With no one left to PK, a Classic Shard would just turn into Fel...and Fel is empty pretty much 24/7.

You have to consider something besides your desire to PK everyone you see. That was tried once, and it failed. We can't go back down that particular path again, because we already know exactly where it leads.

This is a rather underhanded tactic in my opinion. You're labeling anyone who doesn't agree with your system as a PKer, and as a person who wants to PK everyone in sight. On top of that, you're suggesting that people who don't support your system also want little or no consequences for PKing as well.

The reality is that practically everybody who has supported a classic shard has also supported the existence of stat-loss and murder counts. I've only seen two posts made by anyone who supports the idea that even hinted at a system that was less severe than the original system. On top of that, a few players have even attempted to discuss additional consequences for PKing, which shows clear support for additional consequences. The fact that some people don't agree with the sentiment that stat-loss on death is the answer doesn't immediately throw them into the "Pro rampant PKing" category.

I think any system is exploitable. The stat loss on rez system is exploitable as well, because reds will just UM until their counts are done. To me, that is not a disincentive, because they can do this when they sleep, so they don't care.

With stat loss on death, they actually have to suffer the penalty, not just get around it. That's why some posters are so vocal against the idea I feel.

The stat-loss on death system is exploitable in exactly the same way. Just do it while you're alive and stand in a location where you can't get hit by Meteor Swarm in your house. Pretty simple.

Additionally, this only effects PKs who PK on a moderate basis. Any PK intent on going deep into stat-loss wouldn't work off their counts anyway. Beyond roughly 20 counts, the time investment to wait off your counts is long enough that making the character again from scratch would take less time and hassle. The same is true with any PK who would be hit with stat-loss on death.

@Treb Drab and spade gt

The criminal action query (originally called the notoriety query) was in game as early as late 97, so there was a way of controlling whether you committed a criminal action or not.

Also, fire field and - under certain circumstances - energy vortexes/blade spirits, would not give you murder counts for their use. This is noted in the 3/19/99 patch notes:

Energy vortexes and blade spirits will function a lot like the field spells with regards to the reputation consequences. They still attack victims normally, and the caster is completely responsible for their actions. This includes being cast as a murderer should the blade spirit/ vortex attack and contribute to the death of the victim. However, merely running into a blade spirit or energy vortex will no longer be grounds for reporting the caster for murder. The caster will become criminal should someone take indirect damage from such a spell, but much like fire field, they will not be reportable for murder.

Also, one last quick note:

I've never heard of anything like that. I remember short term (8hrs) and long term (40hrs) murders, with the 5th short term murder making you go red. You could work off your short term murders by spending time in-game so that you never reached that 5th kill at any one point (blue PKs). Didn't matter if you killed five people in one day or spread across a full week, it was determined by how many short term murder counts your character had at any given point.

Flip the short terms and long terms around and you've got the T2A system for murder counts. Long terms governed red/blue status and short terms governed stat-loss on resurrection.

 

[Unsatisfied]

I think any system is exploitable. The stat loss on rez system is exploitable as well, because reds will just UM until their counts are done. To me, that is not a disincentive, because they can do this when they sleep, so they don't care.

They will play an alt until time for bed, then log in with the red they are burning counts off on, and will sit by a moongate, or in a house, or whatever.

With stat loss on death, they actually have to suffer the penalty, not just get around it. That's why some posters are so vocal against the idea I feel.

I'm aware that people UM off counts but remember a short term being 8 hours, the pks we want to stop are the frenzied pks that go out and kill and kill untill as you say "the fish pond is empty" so under this idea they have how many counts do you think? Let's say they have 50 counts, that's 400 hours, even unnatended that's a long freakin wait to use that character again. Sure the people who have 7 counts only have to macro off a handfull of counts and they could do this unattended in a few nights, isn't that a fair punnishment for pking a small ammount of people? Or are they the ones your really want to punish severely here with stat loss on res? Cos they are the ones who are really being punnished. Or is it the ones that "fish till the fish pond is empty"

The better solution would be harsher stat/skill loss penalty if they do choose to res.

 

[Renyard Foxenwyle]

The better solution would be harsher stat/skill loss penalty if they do choose to res.

While I have gone on the record as saying we need harsh penalties for PKers, it really does become a slippery slope. Depending on how easy or hard it is to gain skill we may end up with the throw away gankers we had right before UO:R where a PK would just delete a character after it went into stat loss because with power hour and such it was insanely easy to skill up a new character. This is partly why I don't really approve of stat loss on death and think that having the PK's UMing counts off before they rez isn't necessarily a bad thing. I know UMing counts away while you're sleeping is hardly a disincentive, but if you increase the decay time of counts from say 8 hours to 24 hours, and they have to get rid of all counts to rezz without stat loss after going red then that effectively puts the character out of omission for a few days. If they choose to rez as a red, lets give them a challenge. No beneficial actions would be allowed to be done to them. They'd have to go to bucs for their banking and vending needs etc... yeah it's easy to build an alt to PK with too, but eventually the harshness of these penalties will keep the gank squads away. I think the gankers are the ones we really need to keep well policed. I do not think any other type of PK had the detrimental effect to the game that the gankers did.

Stat loss on death without other harsh restrictions involved for the red would just be empowering the gank squads. When it comes down to it, It dosn't matter if your character has 70 magery or 100 magery. If there are 5 of you killing one guy you're going to win regardless of your skill. To be realistic about it, even in a 1v1 situation a stat loss PK is more likely to win a fight with say a 7x gm adventuring toon simply because the PK has more experience PvPing than say the PvM style player.

Edit: For the record I think skill loss should be thus: If a PK toon is GM'd in any skill it should be reduced to 70. Any other skill that isn't GM'd should be reduced to 55 in order to keep the PK's from playing 7x 99.9 toons. Stats should all be slashed in half. If you had 100 str now you have 50 etc... With this style of stat loss in place I would support shorter time for murder counts to drop off simply because I know that my count idea is extremely harsh. Yes I know this stat loss idea is very harsh too, but spare the rod spoil the child etc...I just don't want those who want to have fun by griefing others, ganking, etc... destroying the dream of a classic server should it become reality.

 

[Llewen]

Heh, heres one for you folks:

Control slots and pet bonding: yes or no

I vote No.

As far as I am concerned pet bonding is like insurance for pets and has no place on a classic shard. If you want to make tamers well and truly overpowered this would be the way to do it...

And in case anyone thinks I'm biased against tamers, a tamer is my favourite character template to play and I'm well known for it on my shard.

 

[Kaleb]

As far as I am concerned pet bonding is like insurance for pets and has no place on a classic shard. If you want to make tamers well and truly overpowered this would be the way to do it...

And in case anyone thinks I'm biased against tamers, a tamer is my favourite character template to play and I'm well known for it on my shard.

I say yes,

I remember how horrible it was, people towing around 4-5 ww's or dragons. They would hog all the good spawns, Faction tamers would invis their drags around a moongate and yell all kill at the site of any orange or grey. Pet bonding and follower spots balanced out the tamer on all fronts it was a good addition. In fact it was so good The PRS im on has Follower spots and bonding on a t2a ruleset shard. What we do not need are petballs.

 

[Antonio Cataneo]

Hi, i'm not gone through the myriad of posts before this, but since i've got the notice of this "Classic Shard" discussion through mail i felt thrilled. Something is moving, it seems. I remember people telling me GTFO when i proposed something similar, i remember the sad Wowization of UO (if you want to play WoW style... play WoW ! ) and nowdays i'm playing on an unofficial shard (which i will not name) with a T2A ruleset. It feels more populated that the actual production one. Now , from this experience, i know 2 things for sure

1) OLD TIMES CANNOT BE BROUGHT BACK BECAUSE OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES!!! : Ventrilo, Teamspeak, massive usage of IRC, massive presence of KIDS due to the growing of free internet and such WILL CHANGE the gameplay , and you can add the fact that there will be a 75% population of VETERANS, so less "naive" playerbase (which made OSI GREAT in the past) imho and LOADS of griefers and pks that want to do that. But it can be balanced. I've seen people on this shard doing things that werent done back in the day BY PLAYERS such as a PLAYER BASED POLICE @ banks with forensinc cramming thieves, aid squads to pked ppl and such.

2) THE RULESET MUST BE THE SAME AS THE OLD AGE! NO IMPLEMENTATION! NO BASTARDS RULESET!!! The rules shall be the old ones. No implementation of sorts, even on annoying things, it would fail miserably because ppl would start to whine on things such "AH! THIS XXX HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED WHY NOT IMPLEMENTING YYY ???" . Two matters are BASILAR

1- The Murderer system
2- The housing system (which phase)

Murderer system shall be the stat loss one. Back in the day with the ultra slow gain rate murderers were harsly punished, the fault was of the blue people not taking the countermeasures, and whining a lot because they pay for the game . In the freeshard, were you not pay, you can't whine on something you are borrowing for free. But it must be clear that if you want to be a trammelite production shard are your places to be. The stat loss system is HARSH as it was, and its ok like that

Housing system should be the early phase: houseloot and housebreaking are ok, banning of accounts from the houses are ok, the vendor system was ok and so on. You should keep you house safe with you intelligence, not making the house PRIVATE per se, with the automatic banning of every account except friends.


Old times cannot be brought back but we can experience to play the game we once loved AGAIN and it can be REALLY FUNNY! i can think of LOADS of ppl that would come back to play a classic shard. Nowdays lag is less and less an issue and that can be a big help for an even more enjoyable classic gameplay .
I will come back with other thoughts after reading the whole post.

I forgot about tamers: no bonding ! It's SO CHEAP!!! and ppl with loads of white wyrms can get them stolen , no one will camp a spawn with me around you can bet it

 

[lynxofeuropa08]

Re: Classic shard: Narrowing the gaps

i would pay

 

[Derrick83]

I can picture it now...

...Shard goes live

...Loads of (Young) players at the Sweet Dreams inn, Britain.

Ahh isnt that cute. He thinks they had "young" status back in T2A

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

While I have gone on the record as saying we need harsh penalties for PKers, it really does become a slippery slope. Depending on how easy or hard it is to gain skill we may end up with the throw away gankers we had right before UO:R where a PK would just delete a character after it went into stat loss because with power hour and such it was insanely easy to skill up a new character..

Power hour would be a huge mistake on a shard like this in my opinion

Stat loss on death without other harsh restrictions involved for the red would just be empowering the gank squads. When it comes down to it, It dosn't matter if your character has 70 magery or 100 magery. If there are 5 of you killing one guy you're going to win regardless of your skill. To be realistic about it, even in a 1v1 situation a stat loss PK is more likely to win a fight with say a 7x gm adventuring toon simply because the PK has more experience PvPing than say the PvM style player.

Not all pks run around in gank squads, some are very solo minded players whose only social interaction is killing other people, also keep in mind that many blue players travel in bands as well, and 70 magery could be a liability very quickly when facing more than one opponent, couple that with the stat loss and lower mana pool as well and it isn't so daunting a task.

For the record I think skill loss should be thus: If a PK toon is GM'd in any skill it should be reduced to 70. Any other skill that isn't GM'd should be reduced to 55 in order to keep the PK's from playing 7x 99.9 toons. Stats should all be slashed in half. If you had 100 str now you have 50 etc... With this style of stat loss in place I would support shorter time for murder counts to drop off simply because I know that my count idea is extremely harsh. Yes I know this stat loss idea is very harsh too, but spare the rod spoil the child etc...I just don't want those who want to have fun by griefing others, ganking, etc... destroying the dream of a classic server should it become reality.

I don't disagree with the premise you are throwing out at all here, only the numbers perhaps are a bit harsh, especially going from say 100 INT to 50, then again it's really hard to put a system into place that appeases both sides in either event I don't think pks need penalties beyond this kind of stat/skill loss, if you do anything more than this such as no recall for example you risk alienating them completely.

 

[lostcase]

Re: Classic shard: Narrowing the gaps

love the memories, love the game. Bringing back t2a will show deep respect to the old players and bring forth a immense community and player boom.
More subscribers inform of veterans plus old and new Ultima fans. The community will grow since the pledge was heard and "force" old player to come back, winning the veterans will revive the RP and the charm UO once had.

I think it will be a huge step for the developers too, as they will downgrade the game because of a costumer request. (Game downgrader, a respected job title if you ask me)
But remember that the costumer has always right.
"all we´ve done was for nothing" would be wrong statement because of all the experience gained, as any mother would say.
I think the development team has changed a bit since I played the game, and it will be a heavy task indeed.(if there isn't a backup of some sort, hehe )
It´s great that UHall/Stratics and the people keep the memories and the keep pushing the producers/dev-team on this important subject.

All respect to you guys!

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

1) OLD TIMES CANNOT BE BROUGHT BACK BECAUSE OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES!!! : Ventrilo, Teamspeak, massive usage of IRC, massive presence of KIDS due to the growing of free internet and such WILL CHANGE the gameplay , and you can add the fact that there will be a 75% population of VETERANS, so less "naive" playerbase (which made OSI GREAT in the past) imho and LOADS of griefers and pks that want to do that. But it can be balanced. I've seen people on this shard doing things that werent done back in the day BY PLAYERS such as a PLAYER BASED POLICE @ banks with forensinc cramming thieves, aid squads to pked ppl and such.

You are not bringing anything new to the table here, most of the people considering this have played on free shards mirroring the T2A ruleset and aren't looking so much to capture the "magic" they simply want to play on a classic themed shard.

THE RULESET MUST BE THE SAME AS THE OLD AGE! NO IMPLEMENTATION! NO BASTARDS RULESET!!!

From my perspective, that's a negative and for a very simple reason, we had the original rule set and it failed. It failed because it refused to accommodate a fairly large part of the player base, and a lot of those people consider pking griefing whether the pk is a total ass or not, they consider any loss of their time at the hands of another player to be griefing.

While I think that mentality is immature and silly in a game that is about social interaction, I can only speak to my opinion and nothing I say can change that mindset amongst those who share it.

What we can do however is offer up something in terms of balance to say, these guys won't go without punishment if they pk you. If we as a collective fail to address the issue or we just tell others they are delusional and act like it never existed then the shard will suffer the same fate that the old ones did, it's really that simple.

 

[Llewen]

I say yes,

I remember how horrible it was, people towing around 4-5 ww's or dragons. They would hog all the good spawns, Faction tamers would invis their drags around a moongate and yell all kill at the site of any orange or grey. Pet bonding and follower spots balanced out the tamer on all fronts it was a good addition. In fact it was so good The PRS im on has Follower spots and bonding on a t2a ruleset shard. What we do not need are petballs.

Personally I don't have a problem with follower slots. That's great, there just shouldn't be any pet bonding.

What so many fail to realize in so many discussions that I've had is that a pet in reality is a piece of equipment. It isn't some distinct entity with a life of it's own. It does have it's own a.i., but in every other respect it is a piece of equipment, just like anything else you can equip and wear. Without a tamer to direct it and maintain it, it is just another mindless mob.

If you are going to have pet bonding, you might as well have item insurance as well. With pet bonding you are essentially giving every tamer a stable full of blessed gear.

I'm not belittling those who feel an attachment to their pets in game, or diminishing their importance in role play. I'm just saying that at it's most basic, a pet is a piece of character gear, and nothing more, and shouldn't be treated any differently than any other piece of gear when it comes to issues like insurance, and bonding.

Another thing that people don't seem to realize is that a trained pet is very different from an untrained pet, and if you give every tamer the ability to have a fully trained dragon that can't be permanently killed on a T2A shard it is very quickly going to become a shard where tamers completely dominate. Siege has had that same problem, for much the same reasons.

Against T2A era characters wearing T2A era gear, a fully trained dragon, or a fully trained white wyrm, is a devastating weapon.

 

[dinanm3atl]

I just don't believe that 'harsher' penalties are necessary to 'curb PK' action. I was playing for almost 10 years. I have seen almost all of he crap and been there in the golden age. It was a part of the game. The ruleset for PKs/murderes I feel was just fine. A quality post above mentioning that if we want classic and we all seem to love T2A and that appears to be what we remember as our favorite... why not just drop it just like that. MAYBE some minor tweaks ...

All I can think of right now is a brand new shard. With no transfers. No buying a 'started' character. It will be like when I dropped into UO over a decade ago. Minoc was a bustling mining town with the clanking of hammers in the smithy overcoming the quality music of Minoc. Learning to fight... by killing Harpies in Covetous. Those were the day. People skinning it quickly to force everyones loot box to close so they could grab the measly 84 gold... The humor was that everyone was in hodgepodge armor they made themselves. Using ******* Swords and Halberds... should have been using skinning knife or a katana... swings faster! Duh!

Oh the memories... it would be like renewing your vows with the significant other you truly love.

 

[Bc-]

People really should read the sticky before posting in this thread. It was in the email guys, the sticky is a great description of what we have discussed up until this point and a lot of people are just making the same points.

IRC was widely used back in the early days, my guild kept it open just blow the UO window so you could see any time someone was under attack and respond immediately. Also, a lot of people in my guild played in Southern Cali and kept 3 way+ calls open during our PvP outings.

These are not new things, and FYI the majority of the player base for original UO was under the age of 18. I know that myself, and about 200 people I played with in the first few months of UO were all just kids. This is again, not something new.

If anything though this new generation of gamers are even greater than us, the games are more advanced than they were with Ninja Turtles and Load Runner.. kids are adapting faster. I would love to see a brand new generation of gamer brought into a Classic shard to battle it out with the old vets. That would require some marketing though by Mythic, something they have never been really good at.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Personally I don't have a problem with follower slots. That's great, there just shouldn't be any pet bonding.

What so many fail to realize in so many discussions that I've had is that a pet in reality is a piece of equipment. It isn't some distinct entity with a life of it's own. It does have it's own a.i., but in every other respect it is a piece of equipment, just like anything else you can equip and wear.

I see your point about bonding being like insurance Llewen...but let me play devil's advocate here for a second.

Getting a new piece of equipment, like a GM Katana for example, is a relatively easy thing to do. Taming a dragon is not. In T2A, taming a dragon was time consuming...and it would kill you...often! Not to mention the sheer amount of time it takes a Tamer to get to the skill level to be effective at playing that template. Taming dragons and white wyrms is not like swordsmanship or archery. You can't just go have a friend hand you a WW and go out and hunt with it.

Now, I don't disagree...control slots are probably a good idea, but I think that hamstringing tamers with control slots needs bonding to offset that hit. The only reason I didn't just quit UO when they put in control slots was because they introduced bonding...which in some ways is better than having no control slots.

But think about it like this...with control slots and bonding, the impact on PvP is less because the tamer can only have either a dragon and a drake, a dragon and mare, or a WW and a mare. They won't be able to have 2 "big" pets (dragon/WW) at one time. So it will be a little easier for people to defend themselves from, or to attack the tamer. But they won't be able to kill the pet. What does killing the pet accomplish anyway? It is an inconvenience to the tamer, but other than that, it offers no direct benefit to the person killing the pet. In a Classic environment, the person that killed the tamer could dry loot that person...so it's not like they are getting less loot.

I am sort of on the fence on the control slots and bonding vs. no control slots debate...but I think it definitely should be one or the other...not a mix.

I think in the interest of keeping the shard as "classic" as possible, it would be best to just go with the classic rules concerning this though. So I guess my vote would be no control slots/no bonding.

 

[Llewen]

Getting a new piece of equipment, like a GM Katana for example, is a relatively easy thing to do. Taming a dragon is not. In T2A, taming a dragon was time consuming...and it would kill you...often! Not to mention the sheer amount of time it takes a Tamer to get to the skill level to be effective at playing that template. Taming dragons and white wyrms is not like swordsmanship or archery. You can't just go have a friend hand you a WW and go out and hunt with it.

Soooo, getting a supremely accurate indestructible silver katana of vanquishing was easy back then? That's odd, the best weapon I ever found in a dungeon was a power kryss that I managed to keep all of five minutes. In contrast all I had to do was save up 50k, and go buy myself one of that long row of dragons sitting at Brit bank.

Too many people think they understand taming, when they don't. I play a tamer mage, a real tamer that can you know, tame things, and my pets are my primary weapons. I am a tamer first, not a mage first. I farm my own pets, and I train my own pets, and I more than hold my own in pvp. I understand the power of pets. Most who post on Stratics don't. They either think they are easy God mode, or they are completely useless. They are neither in the hands of a skilled tamer.

I don't have a problem with either no control slots, or control slots, because I know it was hard to control more than one or two powerful pets back in the T2A era, but I am dead against pet bonding of any kind. Basically it is a risk versus reward issue. If you are going to be carrying what is the most powerful weapon in the game, you should have a chance of losing it, just like anyone would with any weapon.

 

[Trebr Drab]

I think any system is exploitable. The stat loss on rez system is exploitable as well, because reds will just UM until their counts are done. To me, that is not a disincentive, because they can do this when they sleep, so they don't care.

They will play an alt until time for bed, then log in with the red they are burning counts off on, and will sit by a moongate, or in a house, or whatever.

With stat loss on death, they actually have to suffer the penalty, not just get around it. That's why some posters are so vocal against the idea I feel.

I'm aware that people UM off counts but remember a short term being 8 hours, the pks we want to stop are the frenzied pks that go out and kill and kill untill as you say "the fish pond is empty" so under this idea they have how many counts do you think? Let's say they have 50 counts, that's 400 hours, even unnatended that's a long freakin wait to use that character again. Sure the people who have 7 counts only have to macro off a handfull of counts and they could do this unattended in a few nights, isn't that a fair punnishment for pking a small ammount of people? Or are they the ones your really want to punish severely here with stat loss on res? Cos they are the ones who are really being punnished. Or is it the ones that "fish till the fish pond is empty"

The better solution would be harsher stat/skill loss penalty if they do choose to res.

Personally, I think working off counts as a ghost is a problem.

Rather, I think counts should be traded in for stat loss, after a base stat loss at res is determined.

In other words, you res with a basic stat loss, you lose no murder counts (or half or some other percentage) and remain red if you still fall in that category. With an option to trade in more murder counts for more stat loss. Work off more murder counts by playing after resing.

 

[Renyard Foxenwyle]

Personally, I think working off counts as a ghost is a problem.

Rather, I think counts should be traded in for stat loss, after a base stat loss at res is determined.

In other words, you res with a basic stat loss, you lose no murder counts (or half or some other percentage) and remain red if you still fall in that category. With an option to trade in more murder counts for more stat loss. Work off more murder counts by playing after resing.

I like that idea. I would change a little to it. Like you said, count's only fall off when you're alive so you can't UM them off as a ghost. This idea, plus a no beneficial action to reds limitation would a strong disincentive to PK, plus give the PvPers who want challenge a challenge. T

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Soooo, getting a supremely accurate indestructible silver katana of vanquishing was easy back then?

Of course not. I said a GM Katana...not this...

I play a tamer mage, a real tamer that can you know, tame things, and my pets are my primary weapons. I am a tamer first, not a mage first. I farm my own pets, and I train my own pets, and I more than hold my own in pvp. I understand the power of pets. Most who post on Stratics don't. They either think they are easy God mode, or they are completely useless. They are neither in the hands of a skilled tamer.

You and I are very much the same. I am a tamer first, mage second. In fact, I only bothered to get a legendary scroll for taming, not magery. But all that aside, being a tamer, then you should fully understand the sheer grind it takes to get to even 100 taming (since a classic shard won't have powerscrolls...I won't get into the fact that it took longer to go from 100-110 than it did 0-100, and even longer still to go from 110-120). Unlike other skills, tamers don't really make much money during the training of their skills. An archer, for example, gains in skill by killing creatures (or other players) and gains loot from doing so. While a tamer tames, and tames, and tames, and tames, and tames, and tames...and tames some more. If you take the time off of taming to go out hunting, you fall behind in your skill gain.

I don't have a problem with either no control slots, or control slots, because I know it was hard to control more than one or two powerful pets back in the T2A era, but I am dead against pet bonding of any kind. Basically it is a risk versus reward issue. If you are going to be carrying what is the most powerful weapon in the game, you should have a chance of losing it, just like anyone would with any weapon.

Like I said, I see your point that its like insurance. That's why I think it should just be the pre-Pub 16 way.