Factions Testing Commencement

[deraiky]

I like it because its more concentrating on fighting rather than a lot of people running around the world trying to collect and keep all sigils, whose stealthers you wont be able to catch either..
It's also less work for the faction trying to hold the sigil and they can concentrate more on fighting than trying to keep all sigils in their base.

 

[Lady Michelle]

I like it because its more concentrating on fighting rather than a lot of people running around the world trying to collect and keep all sigils, whose stealthers you wont be able to catch either..
It's also less work for the faction trying to hold the sigil and they can concentrate more on fighting than trying to keep all sigils in their base.

If it is just about fighting why even have sigils in the first place? If it is only going to be about the fighting. The object of factions is the sigils. You take them to your base, you defend your base by keeping your enemy factions from getting into your base to get them. There is alot of fighting and defending at the same time. To me factions is where you have to use your head and think. How do you break someones defense ? how do you set up a defense to keep others out. Seriously there is enough mindless pvp already in UO why bring it into factions.

 

[Tina Small]

These things are part of the long-term plan. These plans are still in the design phase. As such, I'm interested in getting some feedback.

Here's a nebulous overview of where we'd like to go with town control:

Basically, we'd like to change the way it works such that each of the 8 controllable towns would come up for grabs in a continuously rotating schedule of approximately three hours. The schedule would work in such a way that the window to take a town shift by a few minutes each day, and from the perspective of someone who plays at the same time every day then each day a different town is up for grabs.

So, instead of being a constantly ongoing battle open for potentially all towns, the game instead would be a series of concentrated battles for single town at a time. At any given time, all online players would be able to tell what town's capture window is open. The idea is to capture that town's sigil, hold it for a short time to corrupt it, then successfully return it to the town. Failure of any faction to do so means the town goes uncontrolled until it comes up for capture again the next day.

I'd like to see responses discussing the pros and cons of a system such as this. This feedback is important because it will help shape a possible future Factions change. Again, this is something we are considering for future development, not something we have solid plans right now to implement and publish.

Can you clarify a couple of things, please, to help us respond?

Are you saying there will be a three hour window when each sigil will be "active" and available for stealing and that these windows will not overlap each other at all?

If yes, then how long do you actually have to hold the sigil to corrupt it? One minute? Two hours?

Can there be any interruptions in your hold time?

Will we still have the rule where the sigil bounces back to its last location if it is held too long in a character's backpack?

How long do you have to hold a sigil in your backpack to stop it from corrupting for the last faction that held it?

How will you handle the sigil activity period that ends during server maintenance?

Can sigils be stolen during the hour after server maintenance?

Are you planning to do away with faction vendors, guards, and horse breeders, sheriffs and finance ministers? If not, what will happen to the faction NPCs that were placed by one faction when another faction gains control of the town?

Can you give us an idea of how much the schedule will slide from one day to the next? I'm guessing that in actuality you aren't going to go with exact three-hour windows but something slightly less, there will be no more one-hour window when sigils can't be stolen after maintenance, and the schedule for any particular day will kick off for a shard when its maintenance period is over and the shard is available for logging in. Just a guess though. More details would be nice, to help people who don't have the luxury to play round the clock will be able to estimate when a particular town might actually be up for grabs when they are able to play.

Also, will this new way of scheduling sigils for activity change anything with regards to getting points for stealing/returning sigils? Which thieves will actually get sigil-stealing points--only the ones who steal the sigil from town and return it, or any thief who manages to steal a sigil from town or another base and who cares who ultimately sets it back in town?

Will you be changing any rules regarding placement of faction guards in the towns (e.g., surrounding the guards with vendors will still be illegal)?

Will you be changing any rules regarding placement of traps in towns?

Will you be adding any new items that can be used in the towns for offense/defense?

Do you plan to make any changes to faction town layouts? Will posts/monoliths and town stones stay in their current locations? Do you plan to change any town borders?

What's going to happen to the castle?

 

[Lore Denin (GL)]

Basically, we'd like to change the way it works such that each of the 8 controllable towns would come up for grabs in a continuously rotating schedule of approximately three hours.

I rarely flat out disagree with any idea and always look for the positives but I strongly disagree with this one. In the faction system you are proposing, fighting becomes a pointless merry-go-round with no real victory in sight. Factions is a daily pvp grind which revolves around rank, pvp and items.

Many of us have lived through this type of corruption pattern before during the invasions, where we had to corrupt cities ever 4 hours. It Killed Factions. It burnout participation, it made owning a city pointless and I don't know if any of us who worked day and night to keep the cities from other faction control during that stretch could handle it again...

So, instead of being a constantly ongoing battle open for potentially all towns, the game instead would be a series of concentrated battles for single town at a time. At any given time, all online players would be able to tell what town's capture window is open. The idea is to capture that town's sigil, hold it for a short time to corrupt it, then successfully return it to the town. Failure of any faction to do so means the town goes uncontrolled until it comes up for capture again the next day.

It sounds like you want to narrow the focus and make the battles more concentrated and tactical, I completely agree. In my experience having an endless cycle as you are proposing makes fights sloppier, less focused and random over time.

The system as proposed eliminates the tactical element of raiding an enemy faction who is guarding a sigil while holding a sigil yourself, "Who should stay behind and who shoud raid? How many forces do you leave behind to guard, how many people are you willing to risk falling into stat before calling back the raid? How disciplined can your troops in the raiding force be "not to flag" so they can restreat to your homebase quickily in case your base falls under attack while your raiding party is out."

Here are a few factors that I believe would lead to a more concentrated, focused and meaningful warfare. I am sure you have been reading all these posts and hearing about making towns more important town control meaningful, etc.

This is a long post but it will give you an some idea of what that might look like in some form. I am not saying," this is what you should do" or "this is exactly what people want". I am just saying these are the types of changes people in UO and particularly factions have been talking about for years.

1) Each new Stronghold has 16 sigil posts, add additional towns to the faction system: Jhelom, Cove, Nu'jelm, Wind, Occulo, Buc's Den and Serpents Hold. If this is a war for control for Felucca then lets make this a war for control over Felucca.

2) Lower Sigil corruption time to 8 hours.

3) Limit Factions from corrupting more then 2 sigils at one time and no more then 4 sigils a day.

4) Allow a faction to use silver to lower corruption time on (1) sigil, once a week from 8 to 6 hours.

5) Extend the duration of undisputed town control from three days to a week.

6) Towns under the Control of a Faction have attackable, killable guards that spawn and enforce the law as reflected in the beliefs of the controlling faction’s ideology. Controlling Faction members suffer a 5 min statloss if killed by a Faction enemy in a town they control, while non controlling Faction members suffer a 20 min statloss in areas controlled by their enemies.

Town Control: [Excerpt from Comprehensive Faction System]

Depending on which Faction currently controls the town; the laws will be slightly different. To help people quickly and accurately identify who is in control of a town, the town gates will hue the color of the controlling factions, heralds will be located at town limits welcoming/warning players which faction occupies the town, spawn around gates and town outskirts will be allied spawn of the town's controller.

Huing changes: Instead of faction members hueing orange to one another, they will hue the color of their faction to both faction and non faction players. Faction Murders (Reds) will hue the faction color outlined in red.

Virtue Faction Control: The Crusaders of Virtue wish to return law to the land as it was in the golden age of Britannia. The Crusaders wish to restore law and provide safety for the innocent. [Altered from TB]

-Town Gates are accessible to all except murders (reds), criminals, and Guardian Legion Members
-Only non faction blues and Virtue Faction members may gate/recall in or out of town.
-Fields can not be cast within town limits
-Guards will automatically enforce the law upon any Guardian Legion member, murderer (red) or criminal entering the town and upon any person who commits a crime within the town limits (including Virtue Faction Members).
-Free Trade Faction members will be warned to follow the law when they enter the town limits but will not be attacked by the guards unless they are a criminal (grey or red) or commit a crime while in the town limits.
-Attacking a Virtue faction member or an innocent (blue) within town will be viewed as a criminal act.
-Free Traders may attack criminals within town and members of the Guardian Legion as well as defend themselves if unfairly attacked.
-Virtue Faction members will be considered criminals if they attack law abiding Free Tradesmen within the town limits.
-Guardians Legion members will be viewed as criminals and attacked immediately upon entering the town by guards and may be attacked by Virtue Faction members, Free Traders and Innocents (blues) within town without legal consequence.

Free Trader Control: The Free Traders Factions emphasize hard work, trade and prosperity. Thus the Laws within a Free Trade town protect the people of the town while allowing the most flexibility to conduct business. Even Free Trade Faction Members will not be protected if they chose to hinder business. [Altered from CoM]

-Town Gates are accessible to All Faction and non faction individuals
-Fields can not be cast within town limits
-Guards will warn opposing faction members, thieves and murders not to cause trouble in town but will be allowed to enter unhindered.
- Anyone who commits a crime in town will be attacked by the guards and is subject to attack by anyone in town.
-Free Trade Faction Members may not attack opposing faction members unprovoked without legal consequence in town limits.
-Anyone may freely recall or gate into or out of town unless they are a criminal or in the heat of battle.

Guardians Legion: The Members of the Guardian Legion have laws that reward the loyal and punish any who have not given their oath. Enemies may not enter freely and the innocent do so at their own risk for the law will not protect them. [Alterned from Minax]

-The Town Moongate is only accessible to members of the Guardian Legion
-Only Guardian Legion members may recall or gate in or out of town.
-Fields may be cast in town
-Guards attack all enemy faction members
-Guards will attack those who commit crimes against members of the Guardian Legion inside the town limits.
-Guards will never raise a hand against members of the Guardian Legion as they are above the law.
-Blues, and Reds will not be attacked by the guards upon entering the town but neither will they be warned nor aided.

7) Enhance and Expand Sheriff options to allow increase/decrease guard spawn rates, place additional controllable guards in tactical locations to support weaker regularly spawning guards, automatically find and remove traps and blockades from town.

8) Enhance and Expand Town Minister options allow more vendor types. Purchasing of goods from faction vendors will replenish the town treasury at a rate of 1000 gold to 1 silver.

9) Faction Crafters may ONLY make faction equipment in towns controlled by their faction with the exception of faction traps and barricades which can be made in both a Faction Stronghold and Town. Items crafted by Faction crafters in town can be enhanced with silver which will hue the item the faction’s primary color, with a possibility of being blessed. Faction enhanced items can only be used and worn by members of the same faction.

Faction artifacts can be constructed using specific recipes found on enemy spawns. The recipe lists the ingredients and skills needed to construct the specific faction artifact (which includes less powerful versions of faction arti's that are in play now and barding for faction war horses. Like all other faction craftables, they must be made in a controlled faction town, requires a great deal of resources and are only usable on War Horses of the same faction.

Faction Smith's and Tailors can use silver to alter clothing and armor into other pieces of armor/clothing that occupy the same slot, the chance of breaking the item is relatively high and the qualities will remain unchanged (Changing glasses into another helm type, boots into sandals, etc).

Faction Carpenters can build 1 tile wooden blockades using silver and wood. Blockades are impassable but can be cast over. Blockades can not be placed within one tile in any direction of another blockade nor can they be placed inside or within one tile of any structure. A GM lumberjack has a 20% chance to remove the barrier with an axe or if left unattended the blockade will decay after 24 hours. A faction town is limited to 12 blockades a day.

Faction Tinkers can use silver to make faction traps. Each town can have up to 12 traps in place at one time.

Drawbacks: Crafting with silver is a magical process and has some adverse effects on crafters that last for 5 minutes after working with silver:

-Unable to use magical transportation
-Purple Hue [stealth and hiding -20%]
-Unable to access the bank
-Unable to trade items
-Unable to party or give looting rights
-Unable to insure items

**Crafting for Factions can yield great rewards but its not a stress free job. The clever crafter uses the town guard, barricades and traps to his beneficial but even more important is to have reliable faction mates at your side.

 

[JC the Builder]

So, instead of being a constantly ongoing battle open for potentially all towns, the game instead would be a series of concentrated battles for single town at a time. At any given time, all online players would be able to tell what town's capture window is open. The idea is to capture that town's sigil, hold it for a short time to corrupt it, then successfully return it to the town. Failure of any faction to do so means the town goes uncontrolled until it comes up for capture again the next day.

This plan would eliminate the ability to own towns. You can't have fighting 24/7. A break is needed to enjoy other aspects of UO (which is currently 3 days).

*Added*

The more I think about this change, the more it ticks me off. Factions is supposed to be about big fights. This is going to make it like Yew Moongate, meaningless gank play. The heart and soul of Factions is being ripped out, to be replaced with World of Warcraft style garbage.

 

[tink'r_toiz]

Ut Oh! Remember the last time we didn't know what the word in slang meant Tinkz !

YES! Google was NOT my friend that day!

 

[tink'r_toiz]

This plan would eliminate the ability to own towns. You can't have fighting 24/7. A break is needed to enjoy other aspects of UO (which is currently 3 days).

*Added*

The more I think about this change, the more it ticks me off. Factions is supposed to be about big fights. This is going to make it like Yew Moongate, meaningless gank play. The heart and soul of Factions is being ripped out, to be replaced with World of Warcraft style garbage.

JC, I ABSOLUTELY and COMPLETELY agree with you and Lore on this. Having been part of the thief team during the 4 hour corrupt/6 hour town own cycle last year, I can tell you without any hesitation this idea would KILL factions. It would NOT encourage fighting but would make it pointless and meaningless. As it is, everyone gets a chance to "rest" and do other UO activities for 3 days and by the end of the 3 days they are looking for a good fight. A faction defending the towns brings in a good fight for all and I can't think of anyone that would really want to defend only one sigil and on the sort of rotation there is no way to win.
The burnout factor would be incredible. Instead of non-stop fighting you would have rag tag groups or individuals running all over trying to secure or corrupt a town. The fighting would be meaningless because there would be no "conclusion" to defending sigils. No way to control the towns and therefore no way to win that "round".

PLEASE, think outside the pvp box. Sometimes you need to take something away for everyone to appreciate it and enjoy it more. We need the down time to do other things and start to miss the faction fights. Please DO NOT go back to timers of less than 8 hours and anything less than 3 day purification!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Maximus Neximus]

I'm with Tink and completely agree with Lore and JC. If anything, leave or extend the 3 days of owning towns. If it were to be once a week, it would be a free non-EM pvp event! Anything more than that and people get burnt out and don't see the point in doing it.

 

[Arabella]

When is the Faction Test Center going to be live again? Got a time frame for this?

 

[Berethrain]

Basically, we'd like to change the way it works such that each of the 8 controllable towns would come up for grabs in a continuously rotating schedule of approximately three hours. The schedule would work in such a way that the window to take a town shift by a few minutes each day, and from the perspective of someone who plays at the same time every day then each day a different town is up for grabs.

No one wants to fight for sigils everyday. Scrap the idea and move on.

 

[Viquire]

This plan would eliminate the ability to own towns. You can't have fighting 24/7. A break is needed to enjoy other aspects of UO (which is currently 3 days).

*Added*

The more I think about this change, the more it ticks me off. Factions is supposed to be about big fights. This is going to make it like Yew Moongate, meaningless gank play. The heart and soul of Factions is being ripped out, to be replaced with World of Warcraft style garbage.

JC, I ABSOLUTELY and COMPLETELY agree with you and Lore on this. Having been part of the thief team during the 4 hour corrupt/6 hour town own cycle last year, I can tell you without any hesitation this idea would KILL factions. It would NOT encourage fighting but would make it pointless and meaningless. As it is, everyone gets a chance to "rest" and do other UO activities for 3 days and by the end of the 3 days they are looking for a good fight. A faction defending the towns brings in a good fight for all and I can't think of anyone that would really want to defend only one sigil and on the sort of rotation there is no way to win.
The burnout factor would be incredible. Instead of non-stop fighting you would have rag tag groups or individuals running all over trying to secure or corrupt a town. The fighting would be meaningless because there would be no "conclusion" to defending sigils. No way to control the towns and therefore no way to win that "round".

PLEASE, think outside the pvp box. Sometimes you need to take something away for everyone to appreciate it and enjoy it more. We need the down time to do other things and start to miss the faction fights. Please DO NOT go back to timers of less than 8 hours and anything less than 3 day purification!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unless you guys know something we don't with regard to the sheer numbers of people that are going to have access to this new system I have to concur with both of the above. Because, you see there is really very little way to make money, at this time, through factions. SO other avenues of entertainment and money making must be persued in order to play your faction pvp characters, unless of course you are going to advocate the use of third party sites to stay geared and monied up.

Excitement to fight over sigils and maintain control of towns is only going to be as rampant as the reward to control said towns. At some point an excessive time commitment is going to have to carry more reward than bragging rights for individuals or groups.

That being said, if perhaps the sigils were to come up in groups of two a day, and maybe the timer on the next availability was based off this current availability (four, five, six days? a week?) plus a randomized three to six hours, you might have something. However my mind is really on other things atm so I may not be thinking that through fully, and I'm not really pleased at the way it might nullify player activity, and/or create too many large voids where there is no activity eligible for whatever multiplier you guys are thinking about in regards to active sigil bonuses for the ranking system.

Someone help me out here...

Oh and I know you guys are fleshing out the skeleton on what the basics look like from your end. Have you had any further thoughts about what town control and the benefits derived therefrom for guilds/whole factions look like? Cause the more activity you try to build into this system I think the more important that is going to be.

 

[Hildebrand]

I'm following this thread. Count me in as someone interested in seeing this thing work out.

 

[Mark_Mythic]

Ok, I got my stuff turned in for an upcoming EM event (check the herald it starts late next week).

Shade is what I call my GI Joe name... it is like Phoenix. I only use it on things like jack o lanterns in game. I was told I needed to come up with one and that is what I came up with.

Ok, rotating schedule...

First, the idea is that there is actually more stability in town ownership, not less. Thieving is still important but you are now thieving during this window of around three hours when everyone knows you are trying to thieve. You will probably need a diversion.

Corruption is only going to take a short time... like 30 minutes. But then you have to keep defending until the 3 hour window closes. If someone starts corrupting 10 minutes before the window closes, you go into overtime. If the relic is picked up, the timer starts over.

One of the key reasons to have multiple places to corrupt is so that you can decide where you want to stage your defense. In each keep, some places to hide it favor melee and some favor range.

So, what I imagine will happen during the window is that it won't even get interesting until the last hour... because you don't really want to corrupt it in the first 30 minutes and then defend it for 2.5 more hours. (it is not exactly 3 hours or it wouldn't rotate right, but for the sake of this explaination it works to say 3.)

Another element of this is that there is intent to do things with your town. Like... you own the town for a reason. (**shock**). So, it's going to be a benefit that after you get the town locked down it won't be up for grabs again for a little bit more than a day.

There is an inherant balancing element here... because the more towns you own, the harder it is to keep them all.

The schedule will be known. It will probably be on the Herald. The lore is something like... the Gargoyles have some kind of forcefield magic that is preventing the end of their world by destruction from the void, this knowledge is used with some modification to protect the towns of Felucca from being invaded... unfortuately there isn't enough power to protect them all so there is a rolling blackout.

We could add a mechanism that allows the owners to "power" the field themselves through the blackout. Again, this probably involves some kind of crystal or blood sacrifice or huge mounds of cash... who knows. That part is still pretty incubator.

The main thing it does is create big stretches of time where you can enjoy the fruit of your efforts. There is nothing making you fight all the time. If you all get happy owning 2 towns apiece, then you can all create a pact and just agree not to attack each other... of course... there are those other two towns just sitting there tempting you.

If a town comes up for grabs and is owned by one of the factions, lets say the Freetradesmen (my slogan I like to use for the Free Tradesmen was "If yer so smart, why ain't you rich". Like the way all their stuff is imported?) hold Moonglow when it becomes vulnerable. During that time someone steals the sigil.. but they screw around for too long and it snaps back. Then someone else steals it and starts corrupting it... but then it gets moved from the pillar and they have to start over. Then they have to start over again... Then it gets carried around so long it snaps back to the town. Etc.

So, say no one corrupts it within the 3 hours... even though have of Felucca has had their grubby mits on the sigil... guess who still owns it. FT for another day.

Here's another thought. FT can steal their own Sigial and just take it back to their base if they think it is more defendable. It isn't actually corrupting but they are getting good bonus points for fighting near it.

Anyway, this is how we are kind of envisioning it working. It's not a constant grind to hold a town, it actually gives you time to enjoy your towns and feel like you actually own them instead of having someone steal your stuff a 3 am. You can still do alarmclock raids in the new system... there will be a town that is vulnerable at 3am. But if you took it at 7pm it won't be gone at 3 am the same night.

I realize there is a lot of "it kind of works like this" in this post but that is because I'm describing something that doesn't even have a design document yet.

What Mike is really looking for with his post is any exploit or way such a thing might break. "It might work as long as you account for X" is also welcome.

Ok, I'm headed home, I'm still up to my neck in Pub 66 so I won't be posting much here in the next week.

 

[tink'r_toiz]

I dislike every thing except the towns meaning something and the possible energy field.

I started to respond to each point but by the language this seems to be a done deal. When can we expect this to hit the shards?

*shakes head*

Really, what can you say... this is so obviously not something the majority of faction players want that it is astounding ... the level of disconnect between EA and their players..... *shakes head again*

 

[Arabella]

Excuse me, but do you even read the feedback from the long term factioneers about the timers on the sigils. Scrap this change to the sigils before you ever even put it into test. We already did the 4 hour timer for corrupting and 6 hours on the town post, everyone was burnt out within months then NO ONE even attempted to corrupt them.

As it is right now, anytime the sigils are in play EVERYONE that does factions knows there are thieves out there stealing them, we don't need something to tell us that. After a couple of days of bouncing the sigils until someone corrupts them, everyone is ready for 3 days of no sigils in play.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

..........

Mark, as tink already pointed out, it would seem like you guys are not even listening to us. I have spent the majority of my time on these boards since you guys brought these changes up fighting with my fellow players about how you guys were doing good here, but if you are not even going to listen to us, and just simply try and beat these ideas into us I think I may stop. Not a single person on these boards, including those who are trying to stand up for you guys, likes this rotating schedule idea. If you are not going to listen to our input, why ask for it at all? Honestly no one is going to find bugs in a system they refuse to play. If you put this on test, you wont have anyone sending you bug reports, because no one will be testing it, it is just that simple.

There has to be a point where you, as the developers, realize that presenting us an idea. we reject it, and then you try to explain it to us until we agree with you is not going to work, you need to just forget the idea of a rotating schedule, maybe present a new idea. Don't put so much work into systems with out getting the feedback of the players who are going to use them. Present a general idea, don't code it don't fully design it, just a simple idea and see where that goes with us. You will end up simply wasting your time if you design a system implement it and then everyone decides to never use it.

 

[tink'r_toiz]

Mark, as tink already pointed out, it would seem like you guys are not even listening to us. I have spent the majority of my time on these boards since you guys brought these changes up fighting with my fellow players about how you guys were doing good here, but if you are not even going to listen to us, and just simply try and beat these ideas into us I think I may stop. Not a single person on these boards, including those who are trying to stand up for you guys, likes this rotating schedule idea. If you are not going to listen to our input, why ask for it at all? Honestly no one is going to find bugs in a system they refuse to play. If you put this on test, you wont have anyone sending you bug reports, because no one will be testing it, it is just that simple.

There has to be a point where you, as the developers, realize that presenting us an idea. we reject it, and then you try to explain it to us until we agree with you is not going to work, you need to just forget the idea of a rotating schedule, maybe present a new idea. Don't put so much work into systems with out getting the feedback of the players who are going to use them. Present a general idea, don't code it don't fully design it, just a simple idea and see where that goes with us. You will end up simply wasting your time if you design a system implement it and then everyone decides to never use it.

*hugs Cloak&Dagger*

Thank you for saying what I was too upset to say. I still can't decide whether to cry or break something ... but I can say, that idea is so out of touch that I already see a HUGE way to manipulate the sigils. However, I don't feel that we are being heard with our other input so why should I bother now.

 

[Lady Michelle]

Mark, as tink already pointed out, it would seem like you guys are not even listening to us. I have spent the majority of my time on these boards since you guys brought these changes up fighting with my fellow players about how you guys were doing good here, but if you are not even going to listen to us, and just simply try and beat these ideas into us I think I may stop. Not a single person on these boards, including those who are trying to stand up for you guys, likes this rotating schedule idea. If you are not going to listen to our input, why ask for it at all? Honestly no one is going to find bugs in a system they refuse to play. If you put this on test, you wont have anyone sending you bug reports, because no one will be testing it, it is just that simple.

There has to be a point where you, as the developers, realize that presenting us an idea. we reject it, and then you try to explain it to us until we agree with you is not going to work, you need to just forget the idea of a rotating schedule, maybe present a new idea. Don't put so much work into systems with out getting the feedback of the players who are going to use them. Present a general idea, don't code it don't fully design it, just a simple idea and see where that goes with us. You will end up simply wasting your time if you design a system implement it and then everyone decides to never use it.

*hugs Cloak&Dagger*

Thank you for saying what I was too upset to say. I still can't decide whether to cry or break something ... but I can say, that idea is so out of touch that I already see a HUGE way to manipulate the sigils. However, I don't feel that we are being heard with our other input so why should I bother now.

I already boycotted the faction test center, I'm not going to test any of these changes, because to me these changes have nothing to do with what factions are all about. The changes to me are geared to the hard core pvpers who are just out for easy kills, and actually really are not interested in the sigils at all.

 

[JC the Builder]

It's not a constant grind to hold a town

We must be reading something completely different, because what you described is a constant grind. Having to fight 3 hours times the number of cities you want to control (which is 8), turns into a 24/7 never ending grind. When are Faction players supposed to enjoy other aspects of UO?

 

[tink'r_toiz]

Exactly right JC. I am not sure how they figure this is more time to enjoy the game unless they think that true faction players would be happy corrupting just one sig and then going off to celebrate for the rest of the day.

Honestly, how many of us dedicated to factions, would do that? I know most of us would run and run until we had to go to work, fell asleep on our keyboard or our spouse started phoning the attorney. It isn't real faction play if you don't contest every town.... 24/7, wow, I can only mange 36 hours of no sleep these days.

 

[Lady Michelle]

Exactly right JC. I am not sure how they figure this is more time to enjoy the game unless they think that true faction players would be happy corrupting just one sig and then going off to celebrate for the rest of the day.

Honestly, how many of us dedicated to factions, would do that? I know most of us would run and run until we had to go to work, fell asleep on our keyboard or our spouse started phoning the attorney. It isn't real faction play if you don't contest every town.... 24/7, wow, I can only mange 36 hours of no sleep these days.

this made me think of that commercial from dunkin doughnuts where the guy comes in barely awake mumbling gotta make the doughnuts. Instead it will be tinkz barely awake mumbling got to run the sigil.

 

[Mark_Mythic]

Mark, as tink already pointed out, it would seem like you guys are not even listening to us. I have spent the majority of my time on these boards since you guys brought these changes up fighting with my fellow players about how you guys were doing good here, but if you are not even going to listen to us, and just simply try and beat these ideas into us I think I may stop. Not a single person on these boards, including those who are trying to stand up for you guys, likes this rotating schedule idea. If you are not going to listen to our input, why ask for it at all? Honestly no one is going to find bugs in a system they refuse to play. If you put this on test, you wont have anyone sending you bug reports, because no one will be testing it, it is just that simple.

There has to be a point where you, as the developers, realize that presenting us an idea. we reject it, and then you try to explain it to us until we agree with you is not going to work, you need to just forget the idea of a rotating schedule, maybe present a new idea. Don't put so much work into systems with out getting the feedback of the players who are going to use them. Present a general idea, don't code it don't fully design it, just a simple idea and see where that goes with us. You will end up simply wasting your time if you design a system implement it and then everyone decides to never use it.

I am listening, there were some people who asked for clarification so I gave it. I guess, honestly, I'm kind of baffled that you don't like it so I was assuming you didn't understand it and was trying to explain it better.

JC and Tink, I can see your point that if you are trying to capture and hold every city you would have to stay up all night. I guess this idea was built around some notion that what would make factions more popular is epic battles.

Ok, here are a couple of town related ideas, I'll see if these get any traction. One idea that was pretty popular among the devs and my personal favorite was giving each faction their own currency... like colored faction silver. This silver changes value depending on how many cities you hold. For every town you control the value of your silver against gold goes up. If you control more than 4 towns, your factions silver is worth more than gold in Felucca. This assumes we change all the town vendors to accept either faction silver of the controlling faction or gold. You could loot other factions silver or even trade it normally. In this scenereo, the faction could no longer actively set vendor prices, they can just influence the market by holding cities.

We have also been talking about city upgrades, like special buildings or towers that might have some benefit... like cause certain minerals to become more common near the town for miners.

In truth, so far we have just been looking at making epic battles. We have said, "and then we will need to do something to make the cities more interesting," but we have only really brainstormed a bit.

Another thing I am interested in is making the way a faction chooses their leader more thematic. For example, in the Guardian's Legion might makes right so whoever had the highest score in the faction that week is the new boss. In the Free Tradesmen, you vote with gold. Each person can vote as many times as you want but all gold used to vote is gone. Elected official is still elected for the week. For the Crusaders of Virtue, only those with positive karma can vote and for every rank of positive karma you have you get an extra vote. Those aren't set in stone, but that is the kind of thing about factions that truly interests me. I guess I'm most interested in the parts of factions that equate to a player run civilization.

The themes of the new factions are Guardian's Legion (connected to The Guardian of Ultima lore) is all about being against the Avatar, Lord British and won't stop till they rid Sosaria of their stench. They are a might makes right kind of people. The Crusaders of Virtue are the combined forces of the TB and the COM (who in my humble opinion have always seemed to be poised as enemies in a very artificial way... I get the fact that they don't agree but would they really slaughter each other in the fields?). They are a Virtue makes right kind of people. Free Tradesmen are the wealthy merchants of Felucca who are sick and tired of getting ganked by reds while they are mining and crafting, have lost faith in the nobility to protect them and have decided to take their considerable wealth and hire their own army of mercenaries to take Felucca for the people. Their philosophy is wealth makes right.

 

[Lady Michelle]

I am listening, there were some people who asked for clarification so I gave it. I guess, honestly, I'm kind of baffled that you don't like it so I was assuming you didn't understand it and was trying to explain it better.

JC and Tink, I can see your point that if you are trying to capture and hold every city you would have to stay up all night. I guess this idea was built around some notion that what would make factions more popular is epic battles.

Ok, here are a couple of town related ideas, I'll see if these get any traction. One idea that was pretty popular among the devs and my personal favorite was giving each faction their own currency... like colored faction silver. This silver changes value depending on how many cities you hold. For every town you control the value of your silver against gold goes up. If you control more than 4 towns, your factions silver is worth more than gold in Felucca. This assumes we change all the town vendors to accept either faction silver of the controlling faction or gold. You could loot other factions silver or even trade it normally. In this scenereo, the faction could no longer actively set vendor prices, they can just influence the market by holding cities.

We have also been talking about city upgrades, like special buildings or towers that might have some benefit... like cause certain minerals to become more common near the town for miners.

In truth, so far we have just been looking at making epic battles. We have said, "and then we will need to do something to make the cities more interesting," but we have only really brainstormed a bit.

Another thing I am interested in is making the way a faction chooses their leader more thematic. For example, in the Guardian's Legion might makes right so whoever had the highest score in the faction that week is the new boss. In the Free Tradesmen, you vote with gold. Each person can vote as many times as you want but all gold used to vote is gone. Elected official is still elected for the week. For the Crusaders of Virtue, only those with positive karma can vote and for every rank of positive karma you have you get an extra vote. Those aren't set in stone, but that is the kind of thing about factions that truly interests me. I guess I'm most interested in the parts of factions that equate to a player run civilization.

The themes of the new factions are Guardian's Legion (connected to The Guardian of Ultima lore) is all about being against the Avatar, Lord British and won't stop till they rid Sosaria of their stench. They are a might makes right kind of people. The Crusaders of Virtue are the combined forces of the TB and the COM (who in my humble opinion have always seemed to be poised as enemies in a very artificial way... I get the fact that they don't agree but would they really slaughter each other in the fields?). They are a Virtue makes right kind of people. Free Tradesmen are the wealthy merchants of Felucca who are sick and tired of getting ganked by reds while they are mining and crafting, have lost faith in the nobility to protect them and have decided to take their considerable wealth and hire their own army of mercenaries to take Felucca for the people. Their philosophy is wealth makes right.

First of all really nice visions, but visions are one thing, reality is another. As I pointed out I am not a hard core pvper like others also stated they also aren't. Factions to us are about the sigils guarding them, and doing our best to keep the opposing factions getting their hands on them. The way you built the bases it seems like you only took in consideration of the hard core pvpers play style that just want to roll in kill you roll back out,and not bother with the sigils. It is like you just dismissed the defenders play style as if we do not matter when you built these bases. Heck I know I'm going to die at times when someone breaks our defenses, but at least I know we put up a good defense, and make them work towards killing us defenders.

 

[Smoot]

This plan would eliminate the ability to own towns. You can't have fighting 24/7. A break is needed to enjoy other aspects of UO (which is currently 3 days).

*Added*

The more I think about this change, the more it ticks me off. Factions is supposed to be about big fights. This is going to make it like Yew Moongate, meaningless gank play. The heart and soul of Factions is being ripped out, to be replaced with World of Warcraft style garbage.

I was thinking the exact same thing when initially reading this post. A three hour time limit? Might as well just have everyone go to Yew gate every three hours. With this system there would be little strategy, it would be repetitive and boring and obviously the faction guard / trap system would be useless.

I think a much simpler way to balance factions would be to just reset all points to 0 once every week or so, and put very heavy diminishing returns on sharing faction points.

 

[Trevelyan]

Is the Guardian going to become part of UO fiction at somepoint?

Its a bit early if so maybe stay with Gargoyles for a while.

Ive got an idea though that may apply to this, but is more general to other developmental changes. Why not simply ask players what they want, through an in-game popup one day or through email? Multiple accounts = 1 email address = 1 person, but you want people that log in to the game still.

I am sure years ago this also happened, there was a survey asking players what they want etc. But im not sure how the team can get a good idea of what players wan anymore (and Stratics surely cannot be the only measurement of *all* players, as I have MANY friends who never post or use it).

So I think two things are a good idea:

- Contact current players through in-game prompts asking what they like, want, dont want etc

- Contact players who have not logged into the game for > 6 months and then ask:

• Players inactive since SA
• since KR
• since ML
• since SE
• since AOS
• before AOS

Tailor each survey emailed out to each of the scenarios above. For example, you could ask players recently quit what their reasons are (from options) and whether or not they would consider playing again. Also ask on a scale (1-5) how they feel of proposed/considered features (classic shard, factions changes, new player experiences etc).

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

I am listening, there were some people who asked for clarification so I gave it. I guess, honestly, I'm kind of baffled that you don't like it so I was assuming you didn't understand it and was trying to explain it better.

JC and Tink, I can see your point that if you are trying to capture and hold every city you would have to stay up all night. I guess this idea was built around some notion that what would make factions more popular is epic battles.

OK. As I said, I am trying to defend you guys with all of this, and the way you responded seemed as if you were not listening to everyone saying no. being as you say you were, I will apologize but you also have to realize how it was reading to us. (I am mostly sure you do by now).

Also I do not think we need "epic battles" so much as we need a reason for epic battles, that being said I do like that you guys have at least got some ideas about how to make town control more...appealing, also I like how you are looking at factions, in the "civilization" sense, even though some others here may not agree with me. I will need more time to think about the ideas you presented to really give my opinion but I kind of like the basic direction you guys are going with the towns and voting and such.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

First of all really nice visions, but visions are one thing, reality is another. As I pointed out I am not a hard core pvper like others also stated they also aren't. Factions to us are about the sigils guarding them, and doing our best to keep the opposing factions getting their hands on them. The way you built the bases it seems like you only took in consideration of the hard core pvpers play style that just want to roll in kill you roll back out,and not bother with the sigils. It is like you just dismissed the defenders play style as if we do not matter when you built these bases. Heck I know I'm going to die at times when someone breaks our defenses, but at least I know we put up a good defense, and make them work towards killing us defenders.

I do not fully feel as if that was the idea Michelle, also he has stated he was going for a more "tactical" defense than what is currently available, on top of also trying to make it more of a "city".

I also think if they implemented a few of the ideas around the boards about being able to build blockades and such for some of the entrances but always having one that could not be blocked would actually increase the strategic part of the defense and offense. I can not say I share your playstyle, or have fully experienced it, but I do understand how factions were played, and how defense and offense use to be, so I can say if it is anything like the years gone then the bases are not directed at trying to slight you, perhaps their scope is a little large....thinking enough people would be online to actually defend the bases but it is not against your playstyle. Those are my opinions of the matter anyway, and only based on what I know, as I stated I have never played with you so it is all speculation.

 

[tink'r_toiz]

I am listening, there were some people who asked for clarification so I gave it. I guess, honestly, I'm kind of baffled that you don't like it so I was assuming you didn't understand it and was trying to explain it better.

For the first time I think you may hear us just a bit. You are baffled because you took a notion of what Faction play is, based on your own summation or the advice of a limited group of players (I don't know which nor does it really matter), and you ran with it. Then you handed it to the rest of the real players and said "here it is, like it". First, we all play factions for different reasons; you have a core group that play for the good vs. evil, control the towns; you have core group that play because the fight for the towns creates great pvp; you have a group that plays to get enough points to wear the arties for pvp or pvm. It isn't my place or your place to say any of those players are less valid than the others but the design of the bases, the proposed rotating schedule, etc., appears to be designed to enhance pvp only.

JC and Tink, I can see your point that if you are trying to capture and hold every city you would have to stay up all night. I guess this idea was built around some notion that what would make factions more popular is epic battles.

Again, you misunderstood or were misinformed that Factions is only pvp. That is a common mistake of, *resists urge to call the dev a noob*, new players to factions. Once they play for a while, even the hard core pvpers, realize that sigil movement and defenses, good, long, well set up defenses are what promotes good pvp.

Ok, here are a couple of town related ideas, I'll see if these get any traction. One idea that was pretty popular among the devs and my personal favorite was giving each faction their own currency... like colored faction silver. This silver changes value depending on how many cities you hold. For every town you control the value of your silver against gold goes up. If you control more than 4 towns, your factions silver is worth more than gold in Felucca. This assumes we change all the town vendors to accept either faction silver of the controlling faction or gold. You could loot other factions silver or even trade it normally. In this scenereo, the faction could no longer actively set vendor prices, they can just influence the market by holding cities.

Will Silver be farmable or only earned during faction activities? If farmable you will have a flood of trammel players joining just to farm silver (which happens already). And they will do it on lesser populated shards, transfer to more populated shards and mess with the economy even more than they already do.

We have also been talking about city upgrades, like special buildings or towers that might have some benefit... like cause certain minerals to become more common near the town for miners.

*nods* ... This would be a good first step.

In truth, so far we have just been looking at making epic battles.

But we keep TELLING YOU, your most loyal players aren't just about EPIC BATTLES. We love a good fight but with cause and within reason....*sigh* ...

We have said, "and then we will need to do something to make the cities more interesting," but we have only really brainstormed a bit.

Make the cities worth owning and the battles will take care of themselves. Keep it reasonable, no less than three day owns, make it a requirement to capture at least 4 towns to get the benefits. Put part of the towns on rotation AT MOST, preferrably none. If you feel 8 towns in play is too much ... not sure why you could think that, we thieves are the ones that have to run and refresh the blooming things and we are not complaining... then reduce the number of towns to 6 and make them WORTH something.

Another thing I am interested in is making the way a faction chooses their leader more thematic. For example, in the Guardian's Legion might makes right so whoever had the highest score in the faction that week is the new boss. In the Free Tradesmen, you vote with gold. Each person can vote as many times as you want but all gold used to vote is gone. Elected official is still elected for the week. For the Crusaders of Virtue, only those with positive karma can vote and for every rank of positive karma you have you get an extra vote.

*looks at her fellow TB* ... you all close your ears, uhm, shut your eyes.... OH H E DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS NO NO NO NO NO NO. You are rewarding those that will exploit the point system, the richest players and penalizing the reds that take the counts to protect the defenses when the enemy uses infiltrators against us. Mark, this post shows you are now trying to listen but your ideas are formed on some very incorrect information, advice or understanding of faction play.

Those aren't set in stone, but that is the kind of thing about factions that truly interests me. I guess I'm most interested in the parts of factions that equate to a player run civilization.

*attempts to say it tactfully* ... Then let us players really have a say in what you do with factions. At this point if feels, to me, not speaking for anyone else, that you are saying some of this is a done deal and we better learn to like it. That doesn't lend itself well to the palyer run civilization idea.

The themes of the new factions are Guardian's Legion (connected to The Guardian of Ultima lore) is all about being against the Avatar, Lord British and won't stop till they rid Sosaria of their stench. They are a might makes right kind of people. The Crusaders of Virtue are the combined forces of the TB and the COM (who in my humble opinion have always seemed to be poised as enemies in a very artificial way... I get the fact that they don't agree but would they really slaughter each other in the fields?). They are a Virtue makes right kind of people. Free Tradesmen are the wealthy merchants of Felucca who are sick and tired of getting ganked by reds while they are mining and crafting, have lost faith in the nobility to protect them and have decided to take their considerable wealth and hire their own army of mercenaries to take Felucca for the people. Their philosophy is wealth makes right.

I applaud you for making the effort to listen. Now please clear your mind of the preconceived ideas of what faction play is or should be, that it is all about the pvp (that is a large component but no more important than other roles in factions) and talk to us. WE are your faction players and will tell you what works, doesn't work and what we want and don't want.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Tink, reds can still have good karma. Of course it would be a penalty to Necromancers, and true murders, but in that case it is a Fiction role they are pulling. If you are evil, you should be in the evil Faction, if you are rich you should be in the rich faction.

Of course....The Evil faction is the one most in trouble with his proposed Idea, thank you for pointing it out, people who exploit the system would always be in the top position and those people tend to be the ones who would lest likely be a good candidate for leader, even more so if you plan to make the leadership roles at all important.

 

[Berethrain]

Tink, reds can still have good karma

.

No they can't. They can have 0 karma. But they cant have good karma.

 

[Arabella]

*FALLS OUT OF MY CHAIR* omg she kinda cussed!

 

[Mark_Mythic]

Why would a red want to be in a good faction other than to subvert it? Talk about non-role-play gamey nonsense. A red is a non-repentant serial killer. In my mind, and this is the only part of factions that I really stick on, factions are supposed to be a cause that your characters fight and die for, not just green Drozi vs. purple Drozi. (sorry for the Bab 5 allusion)

As far as the evil faction being addled by back stabbing, intrigues, and otherwise exploiting... that is probably the most role playing factions has seen in years. Also, in the new point system, your score is reset if you switch factions so you would have to be a pretty serious mole who ends up with a large supply of evil faction silver just to subvert it.

Voting in the rich folk faction doesn't need to be expensive, it is only as expensive as they make it. If someone rolls in and drops 200,000,000,000 on one of the candidates... that person is probably going to win but that money is gone, out of the game forever, and they are only going to be leader for a week. To me, getting 200,000,000,000 gold out of the game in one shot sounds like a great idea.

As far as being able to farm colored faction silver, I'm not sure how that would be gated. Faction silver is supposed to be mercenary payment for doing faction work. I would start there and try to come up with a way to make it fair to all people who help factions without just leaving the system at "we just take towns to jack down the prices to the bottom allowable so that Trammys will come down here and get ganked." That system does not even encourage you to take more than one town.

One of the key things that new factions and new colored faction silver allows us to do is just dump a lot of the trash. For example, we make something to replace Faction arties... How do we get rid of the old arties? If we grandfather them we just make Factions less approachable because the old players are still overpowered. If we just make new factions... you keep the old armor as a rare but can't wear it in Factions because you aren't in that Faction anymore. Also, if we go to a colored/minted faction silver system we get to devalue old silver. Old silver is for old factions.

Yes, the Guardian is the same Guardian. We were looking at him because he is core Ultima and a bad enough dude to unite the Minax and SL factions under one roof. Minax would still be around, I have no intention of killing her off any time soon. Minax influence is evident in the design of the Guardian's Legion keep. I was going for a 'vampire chic' look.

Bringing in the Guardian would be bending the timeline a bit, but UO has done that a lot. We added gargoyles in Ilshenar. The real question at this point is not whether I should associate it with the Guardian, it is whether or not we should reduce factions to 3. Right now I'm questioning that decision. Again, the main reason to reduce it to 3 is to pool the people playing factions to create bigger factions and bigger battles. Of course, designing and implementing upgrades for 3 factions takes less time than designing and implementing upgrades for 4 factions... especially when you get into new buildings and such.

So, to elaborate on the fiction I've been working on, the 3 faction system would be combining the 2 good factions and the 2 bad factions and then adding a wild card faction which represented an ideal of not wanting Sosaria to be run by good or bad. I chose the rich because it fits with how UO is actually played. There are some super rich players in this game and it is believable that rich people are powerful and want to control things.

As far as thinking that what I say here is set in stone, not even the stuff on the Factions test center is set in stone. I don't know of any time in the history of UO that we have run a parallel shard to do experimental stuff, so I can understand why you assume that whatever is up there is going in the game. The fact that it is on a parallel shard and not on the pre-pub test center should be a big hint that we aren't sure that this is what is best for UO. Otherwise we would have just made it part of Pub 65. In my opinion, if we had this parallel shard in the past, faction arties would not have gone live as they are now. Now that they are live it is really really hard to change it.

I have always been a decisive thinker and communicator, I just don't have the personality to whimper and snivel. I lay out my ideas and go, "this is what we need to do." The fact that it is my opinion is implicit and I never feel the need to say so. If someone says something that changes my mind, I go, "OK, now this new thing is what we need to do." Indecisiveness and fear of making an unpopular decision is why factions tend to get nothing. Live events is easy... give people stuff and they love you. PVP balance is hard. There is a saying around PVP designers, "when both sides are pancakes the same amount, you probably got it right."

 

[Berethrain]

Voting in the rich folk faction doesn't need to be expensive, it is only as expensive as they make it. If someone rolls in and drops 200,000,000,000 on one of the candidates... that person is probably going to win but that money is gone, out of the game forever, and they are only going to be leader for a week. To me, getting 200,000,000,000 gold out of the game in one shot sounds like a great idea.

Yeah that's an awesome idea Mark.

 

[JC the Builder]

In truth, so far we have just been looking at making epic battles. We have said, "and then we will need to do something to make the cities more interesting," but we have only really brainstormed a bit.

If you put all your ideas on production shards right now Factions is going to remain the way it is or get worse. Until we know what you are planning in terms of city capture rewards, there is going to be no large amounts of faction participation.

We have (or had) what you would consider epic battles at champion spawns and Harrowers for years and years most nights of the week. Why were they epic? Because people were fighting over extremely valuable rewards. Those rewards have been reduced considerably and the game play has become stale, so it doesn't happen much anymore. The same thing happened to factions.

City capture rewards are what every faction player wants right now. If you just added that one thing, Factions would be back on its feet with no other changes. This is what everything hinges on. Right now you have a stick without a carrot.

 

[tink'r_toiz]

Why would a red want to be in a good faction other than to subvert it? Talk about non-role-play gamey nonsense. A red is a non-repentant serial killer. In my mind, and this is the only part of factions that I really stick on, factions are supposed to be a cause that your characters fight and die for, not just green Drozi vs. purple Drozi. (sorry for the Bab 5 allusion)

Reds have not been as you describe in many years. Sometimes they take counts against the subversive forces in your faction in order to keep your most virtuous fighters from having to take them. While it is a great theory, a truly "good" faction, the reality is that people don't stick to the rules of good and bad. They will use planted chars to break defenses and the only way to stop them is to kill them. That is the role of a red in factions (imo).

As far as the evil faction being addled by back stabbing, intrigues, and otherwise exploiting... that is probably the most role playing factions has seen in years. Also, in the new point system, your score is reset if you switch factions so you would have to be a pretty serious mole who ends up with a large supply of evil faction silver just to subvert it.

The "moles" do it now in order to ruin defenses and for bragging rights, no gain. Why would they suddenly turn to being gain driven. Hopefully with this exchange of dialogue will come some understanding. I see you have done a lot of thinking about this but please, how many years have you played factions? In game experience is the only way to truly understand the reality of faction play.

Voting in the rich folk faction doesn't need to be expensive, it is only as expensive as they make it. If someone rolls in and drops 200,000,000,000 on one of the candidates... that person is probably going to win but that money is gone, out of the game forever, and they are only going to be leader for a week. To me, getting 200,000,000,000 gold out of the game in one shot sounds like a great idea.

... so, there you are anice family of faction players (and yes very often the bonds formed in a struggle such as factions make you family). Dedicated, poor because you have put your time into factions. In rolls a group determined to take control and with a kazillion gold (purchased from ___________) and you're "ousted" from leadership because you are not real life as rich as "that guy". Really, you DO NOT want to go this direction. Some of the best non pvp fights we have had has been scavenging up the votes to maintain control of our faction. Don't cheapen this by making it buyable.

As far as being able to farm colored faction silver, I'm not sure how that would be gated. Faction silver is supposed to be mercenary payment for doing faction work. I would start there and try to come up with a way to make it fair to all people who help factions without just leaving the system at "we just take towns to jack down the prices to the bottom allowable so that Trammys will come down here and get ganked." That system does not even encourage you to take more than one town.

One of the key things that new factions and new colored faction silver allows us to do is just dump a lot of the trash. For example, we make something to replace Faction arties... How do we get rid of the old arties? If we grandfather them we just make Factions less approachable because the old players are still overpowered. If we just make new factions... you keep the old armor as a rare but can't wear it in Factions because you aren't in that Faction anymore. Also, if we go to a colored/minted faction silver system we get to devalue old silver. Old silver is for old factions.

Yes, the Guardian is the same Guardian. We were looking at him because he is core Ultima and a bad enough dude to unite the Minax and SL factions under one roof. Minax would still be around, I have no intention of killing her off any time soon. Minax influence is evident in the design of the Guardian's Legion keep. I was going for a 'vampire chic' look.

Bringing in the Guardian would be bending the timeline a bit, but UO has done that a lot. We added gargoyles in Ilshenar. The real question at this point is not whether I should associate it with the Guardian, it is whether or not we should reduce factions to 3. Right now I'm questioning that decision. Again, the main reason to reduce it to 3 is to pool the people playing factions to create bigger factions and bigger battles. Of course, designing and implementing upgrades for 3 factions takes less time than designing and implementing upgrades for 4 factions... especially when you get into new buildings and such.

Maybe you can just fix the issues with the current bases, points and arties and give the total revamp a bit more time.

So, to elaborate on the fiction I've been working on, the 3 faction system would be combining the 2 good factions and the 2 bad factions and then adding a wild card faction which represented an ideal of not wanting Sosaria to be run by good or bad. I chose the rich because it fits with how UO is actually played. There are some super rich players in this game and it is believable that rich people are powerful and want to control things.

Now Mark, I have to tell you, this one made me choke on my coffee. So you will legitimize the wealthy and powerful by giving them their own faction with the benefits they buy from it. The rich get richer... and FYI, this isn't real life. It is a game we play to escape real life and most of us would like it to be a way to get away from the rich/power issues.

As far as thinking that what I say here is set in stone, not even the stuff on the Factions test center is set in stone. I don't know of any time in the history of UO that we have run a parallel shard to do experimental stuff, so I can understand why you assume that whatever is up there is going in the game. The fact that it is on a parallel shard and not on the pre-pub test center should be a big hint that we aren't sure that this is what is best for UO. Otherwise we would have just made it part of Pub 65. In my opinion, if we had this parallel shard in the past, faction arties would not have gone live as they are now. Now that they are live it is really really hard to change it.

I completely agree with you on this... parallel test shard is a must and getting rid of something after it has been given, very difficult...

I have always been a decisive thinker and communicator, I just don't have the personality to whimper and snivel. I lay out my ideas and go, "this is what we need to do." The fact that it is my opinion is implicit and I never feel the need to say so. If someone says something that changes my mind, I go, "OK, now this new thing is what we need to do." Indecisiveness and fear of making an unpopular decision is why factions tend to get nothing. Live events is easy... give people stuff and they love you. PVP balance is hard. There is a saying around PVP designers, "when both sides are pancakes the same amount, you probably got it right."

Alright, I can appreciate a man of decision and action. Just remember, we are free thinking individuals who pay good money every month to play a game. So you work for us (I figured I would leave out the imo since you consider that sniveling and whining). Your employers are trying to tell you what they want. It is now time to listen.

 

[tink'r_toiz]

If you put all your ideas on production shards right now Factions is going to remain the way it is or get worse. Until we know what you are planning in terms of city capture rewards, there is going to be no large amounts of faction participation.

We have (or had) what you would consider epic battles at champion spawns and Harrowers for years and years most nights of the week. Why were they epic? Because people were fighting over extremely valuable rewards. Those rewards have been reduced considerably and the game play has become stale, so it doesn't happen much anymore. The same thing happened to factions.

City capture rewards are what every faction player wants right now. If you just added that one thing, Factions would be back on its feet with no other changes. This is what everything hinges on. Right now you have a stick without a carrot.

Fix a couple base issues, get rid of points, consider artie issues and do what JC just said .... Simple FTW!

 

[Berethrain]

Fix a couple base issues, get rid of points, consider artie issues and do what JC just said .... Simple FTW!

But but but if we get rid of points how do we get to spend 200,000,000,000 gold to elect a faction leader? Will we still get colored silver? Oh God, please tell us we'll still get colored silver. Please?

 

[Lore Denin (GL)]

Player Faction Design Contest!

Give EA/Mythic a great PR boast, fix factions and re-connect with your players.

Announce a Contest for Factions Re-design, let a players (or teams of players) come up with a Factions 2010 update. Have submissions due by June 15th, with the winner declared July 1st.

Then have the winner (winners) help implement the design into the new faction system that goes live September.

The Design will be judged on the Following Criteria and should address the following areas:

-Rank and Points
-Artifacts
-Crafting
-Bases (based on the current three base design)
-Statloss
-Sigils and Town Control
-Other: Other areas of Faction Importance not otherwise mentioned (known issues, exploits, useful additions, etc).

In addition to the above areas, please keep in mind:
-Clarity: If it doesn't make sense to us, then we prob won't be able to incorproate the ideas
-Complexity and Functionality: You may have a great idea but if its to complicated to work then we won't be able to use it.

The Devs are the judges so they obviously will pick a design that at least shares their ideas and could be incorporated to what they have in the works while reaching out and getting what the players want out of Factions.

-Lore

 

[Lady Michelle]

*FALLS OUT OF MY CHAIR* omg she kinda cussed!

I know scarey huh?

 

[Berethrain]

From what I'd see from at least the GL faction, if these are supposed to be looters and raiders, everytime they capture a city like say Britain, I'd like to see the dynamics of the town change.


I.e. Taking out the regular npc guards (not the faction guards, they can leave those out)
Garbage in the streets
Npcs brigands spawn in the city and attack you.
Thieves, NPCs of ill repute etc.

 

[Trevelyan]

I think Mark has made a lot of good points - personally I would love to see some real fiction or something that drives factions and not simply a loose "reason" for them to exist.

 

[tink'r_toiz]

Completely agree with the fiction point... that is why I wrote a bit of my own to get everyone to put their ideas out here for the devs to see. Maybe we can help these changes along and to make sense to us if we give them a viable reason for all the changes....

http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=196884

There is my start to it ... let's see other ideas.

 

[Orgional Farimir]

If you want to make holding a town worthwhile why don't you just make it so each town captured is worth X points and your faction has to earn Y points per month to wear the higher end faction gear.

 

[Lady Michelle]

First of all really nice visions, but visions are one thing, reality is another. As I pointed out I am not a hard core pvper like others also stated they also aren't. Factions to us are about the sigils guarding them, and doing our best to keep the opposing factions getting their hands on them. The way you built the bases it seems like you only took in consideration of the hard core pvpers play style that just want to roll in kill you roll back out,and not bother with the sigils. It is like you just dismissed the defenders play style as if we do not matter when you built these bases. Heck I know I'm going to die at times when someone breaks our defenses, but at least I know we put up a good defense, and make them work towards killing us defenders.

I do not fully feel as if that was the idea Michelle, also he has stated he was going for a more "tactical" defense than what is currently available, on top of also trying to make it more of a "city".

I also think if they implemented a few of the ideas around the boards about being able to build blockades and such for some of the entrances but always having one that could not be blocked would actually increase the strategic part of the defense and offense. I can not say I share your playstyle, or have fully experienced it, but I do understand how factions were played, and how defense and offense use to be, so I can say if it is anything like the years gone then the bases are not directed at trying to slight you, perhaps their scope is a little large....thinking enough people would be online to actually defend the bases but it is not against your playstyle. Those are my opinions of the matter anyway, and only based on what I know, as I stated I have never played with you so it is all speculation. [/QUOTE]
Usually I'm the quiet one who goes with the flow excepts the changes,and adjusts to them when they make it to the shard I play. I'm not the mouthy one who comes flat out, and say I don't like something. I even boycotted the faction test center for my own sanity, because if I go there, and see all these base changes I don't like I might even say something even worse than what I posted already. Mark's posts even set me off and all I can see is overly large bases, and being rolled over by the hard core pvpers.I have also have been mouthy in vent lately.Half the time they don't realize I'm in there cuz I'm so quiet. This is what my allergy meds do to me when I'm on them,and I should know better to not post til I take time to cool down. So til I'm off my allergy meds I'm going to avoid Mark's posts so on the chance I might hit him with a frying pan on the next post I read of his.

 

[Nonel]

It's all been said, already. Factions as they were meant to be played will die fast with that sig system. The fun of it is in the large winner-takes-all battles. People that care about the sigs will burn out within a month.

If you are measuring faction participation by the amount of Yew-gate arty *****s out there fighting with a faction tag over their name, then you'll fail at this.

 

[Malek234]

I also think there should be some kind of punishment for killing within your own faction. Because I have seen it time and again people killing there own faction. Make it some kind of disco for 10 min or so and a lowering of rank. I think this would put comradery between people that might now get along to keep them both out of stat and fighting to control the towns for what ever purpose that will hold

 

[SixUnder]

revamp it again

test shard for factions for the loose.

none of it looks or works like it should.

i will not elaborate cause we been doing that for years.

no one has listened

 

[Berethrain]

no one has listened

Nope, and they never will. Mark and Pheonix hats off to you for trying but the results on the Faction test shard are crap.

In 10 days both accounts that I finished stripping are going inactive and I'm letting them stay that way.

With that being said Im done on stratics as well, no point even thinking about coming back because they're going to **** this one up and it's not gonna be pretty.


It's been fun but Im out. Peace.

 

[Tina Small]

It's been fun but Im out. Peace.

Best of luck to you, Bere. It was a privilege to get to play against you. You always provided a challenge but conducted yourself like a gentleman. I think you will be missed by many. Take care and try to not be a stranger around here.

 

[Arabella]

It's been fun but Im out. Peace.

Aww Bere, hate to see you go. Have fun with the new baby and Fable!