Come with me, to the sea that gets no love

[Prince Caspian]

Anyone notice over the 10+ years Ultima Online has been around that the devs have done virtually NOTHING to improve on ships and the oceans?

I mean the MiBs were the last thing really added, and that was back before the millenium turned.

But we don't see any boat quests, any special events out on the oceans, or even any new decent monsters.

What .GIFs here?

 

[Oriana]

Publish 27, September 2004 was the introduction of Leviathans and the ASoS. But ya thats the last time anything new was added. It would be nice, but right now I want to get Stygian out and as painlessly as possible. Maybe the next expansion? Goodness knows there's plenty of posts and requests for a Sea theme expansion. The 2 townhalls I've been to it was unnanomous amongst everyone there and listening to the other townhalls I'd say they had the same response.

 

[Salty Pete]

I have have wanted the sea to get special attention for a loooooong time now.

Things I have wanted:

Ships - not boats. A two story ship with an NPC crew (similar to the NPC fighters. You would hire them in cities like Vesper, Bucc's den and Cove. The ship would have a hold capacity similar to a small player house and a cost in the 70-80k range.

NPC ships would roam the seas and be boardable (both good and evil). Evil NPC ships would act as pirates. Good NPC ships would act as wandering healers. All NPC ships could be taken over by PCs and used as PC ships simply by hiring a crew.

The ability to swim.... It doesn't have to look like swimming, just show our characters heads above the water. This would do a few things:

1) Allow melee to fight in the water.
2) Allow casters to use field spells and summons in the water.
3) Allow players to walk (swim) to and from islands in order to get healed up without having to abuse the help stuck feature.