Cracked Article on UO Ecology

[Merlin]

Saw this short article about original plans for UO ecology in the morning:
The Time 'Ultima Online' Created The Garden Of Eden (And Players Immediately Destroyed It) | Cracked.com

There is an accompanying (older) YouTube video, here:
(361) How Gamers Killed Ultima Online's Virtual Ecology | War Stories | Ars Technica - YouTube

Figured it was worth a share.

 

[Draza]

Its an awesome video, and a neat thing they kinda built into ter mur with the void mobs.

They had originally planned dragons anf other mobs roaming the countryside looking for food and treasure and shelter.

 

[Pawain]

Good find. Thanks for sharing.

Bloodlust.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

They had originally planned dragons anf other mobs roaming the countryside looking for food and treasure and shelter.

Yep. The original UO manuals even had a bestiary section where it mentions what things the various creatures "Seeks Out: ". That was part of the original ecology mechanic.

 

[John Knighthawke]

The whole thing kind of amazes me, honestly. The original devs have spoken about this many times, for many years. Each time expressing their ire at us for messing up their mechanic by, how dare we, playing the game they gave us. They were, or at least seemed, much more mad at us for this than they were at the rampant cheating, player-killing, and the like.

I guess that's why, however mad I might get at the current team, I'm always a little more muted than most other players. I can remember the foibles, and personality quirks, of dev teams long-since-passed.

 

[Lore]

Pretty short article leading into the video most of us have probably already seen. I don't really care for Cracked. I think they are zerging content at this point and posting it everywhere they can.

I do love those Garriot interviews though. Some real life lessons and experience shared.

 

[Acid Rain]

Easiest way to get Devs mad... dont play their latest content. Or in this case, dont give it a chance to actually work by killing everything b4 it can start.

Most Devs get irked when players refuse to, or dont allow, the mechanics they spent weeks/months coding to function the way they want. Its a control issue imho

 

[Lindae Lives]

But then Lord British placed a rainbow in the clouds as a promise that never again would he destroy all life on account of the sins of mankind.

 

[Miretar]

Only someone with no extensive experience playing pen & paper rpgs would have been surprised by the behavior of the players.

 

[Laura_Gold]

1. There was also the "limited animals" thing.
Circa early 2000, the forests were empty of animals. "Two thirds of the animals are in the stables!" said Runesabre.
That resulted in us getting limited stable slots, which was horrific. Grandmaster tamer got three slots. Non-tamers got two. I'm glad they eventually loosened up on that severe limitation.

2. Supposedly there were limited resources. When a character was created, a large but finite amount of resources were allowed. Sword breaks, mountains get more ore. ...
I never saw anything bad resulting from that, but supposedly "hoarders" made the design team abandon the resource cycling thing.

 

[petemage]

Sure they were suprised as heck that they programmed playable characters with weapon skills that after getting spawned with weapons use the weapons to attack things declared as targetable. Nice 5 year old story. But they either been dense af or telling a little story. Given how succesfull many of them have been, I doubt it's the former.

 

[Pawain]

Sure they were suprised as heck that they programmed playable characters with weapon skills that after getting spawned with weapons use the weapons to attack things declared as targetable. Nice 5 year old story. But they either been dense af or telling a little story. Given how succesfull many of them have been, I doubt it's the former.

First thing I did was attack a cat, and was promptly killed.

 

[Draza]

First thing I did was attack a cat, and was promptly killed.

i had close to the same in occlo. i attacked a dog, then went to the bank and was attacked by other newbies. i was able to heal thru the attacks till i went blue, then had them guard wacked. good times