Gardening FoF Less Than Desirable...

[Eslake]

You are using those 2 shards as a cross of the population and those 2 shards are possibly two of the least populated shards in the game. My experience has revolved around GL, LS, and Legends and I have honestly not seen very many people getting involved with plants.

I did clarify that I only play on those 2 shards and didn't know the situation elsewhere.

I would have thought that higher pop shards would -defacto- have a higher turnover on players, meaning a more constant demand for deco plants (and of course more people to buy the resources).


But it is still relevant. Bonsai pretty much went extinct in a month, while there are gardeners still crossing plants after 5+ years. It is just more interesting.

Using the Bonsai system is a sentance of early demise imposed on a whim.

 

[Lady_Mina]

The price of the old plants kinda make it a low profit hobby tho...

 

[MalagAste]

Or you can get one from begging, but only if your a gm begger. Ok I through in the gm part because I gmed begging last week LOL

Gods I'm jealous!!!!! Two years Begging and still have yet to GM!! Still in my 80's!

As for the new plants coming up.....

I'm disappointed as heck... It feels like a slap.... same as the bonsai... that was total blah!...

I'm with the others.... I could care less if the "chart" makes sense!.... I don't care about your fashion sense either..... I want the hued plants....

And I'm sorry I don't remember who said it ...... BUT your RIGHT! They borked the hueing system LONG time ago the FLOWERS should be the only part that changes HUE the "leafy" part should remain GREEN... This I have seen done RIGHT... It's not rocket science.... It's about programing sense... which evidently is highly lacking in UO.... But I suppose that's what we are left with...

Honestly... I think this is LAZY.... Half-ass attempt at implementing something to keep us playing... Yes you have been doing a grand job at giving us some of the things we desire..... However... Doing it in the least possible way is getting old...

I've often said that I will be playing UO till they turn off the servers..... but each and every week from one disappointing FoF to the next.... from one lame new publish to the next I'm getting fed up. Now I for one liked the turn in system... but now your going to take it away.... fine... but please say it's not going to be permanent.... nothing more irritating than giving us something cool and taking it away..... You think new people will appreciate that? The problem with giving us things that you take away is.... it doesn't make those who are either returning to UO or just starting very excited about the game... makes them resentful.... Somewhat like the old Tokuno dyes.....

Now..... don't even get me started on the whole business where you actually give a rats in Japan and they get all sorts of 'special" treatment including being able to BUY the old tokuno dyes.... and being able to have folk actually dress up and care for their shards... AND Do INGAME events!!!! Nothing torks me off more than the way they get all these things while we here get one disappointment after another. The half-ass new plant system being one of them...

Certainly I'm looking forward to new plants.... and I'm likely to hunt the heck out of all the creatures that spawn seeds... but I'm EXTREMELY disappointed that they can't even be made to produce their own freaking seeds... It will be just as garbage as the Naturalist quests .... the bonsai.... and numerous other things that are done with the least possible amount of effort...

Once again they try to placate us with items... instead of actually working on truly giving us something of any depth that will add something lasting to the game... it's like using a bandaide on an amputated limb..... I suppose they think if they put enough bandaides on the stump it will eventually slow the bleed of folk leaving the game.... When they should be applying a tourniquet and dressings.... or trying to surgically reattach the limb... ie adding a real expansion that's actually complete..... finishing KR right!.. and putting the same full effort into the new plants as is in the old plants...

*shakes head and sulks off to work more begging*

 

[Smokey of LS]

i agree with inspector, who cares, we get our pub's pushed back even more, hasnt been any new exspansions in years or anything much worth a damn new, all they do is new event arcs to fill our boxes at home full of crap once we just cleaned our houses out and they are worried bout addin plants... somethins wrong with this picture.

 

[Draxous]

I think the devs should do a poll in game to see where gardeners are on this. Maybe the proper course of action is to bump the gardening update back and implement it using the cross polination system.

From the FOF

"Adding new plants wasn’t in the planning. Could there and should there be new resources? Absolutely! Adding them to the system isn’t overly complex and could possibly happen at some point in time. Some pretty cool ideas were thrown out there on the forums. But this honestly isn’t on the radar at the moment and you guys will understand better what we’re so busy with at the next Town Hall!".

Thank you Regine, for devoting time to making this game better!!!


Please ignore the people crying about how nothing is ever good enough.

 

[Smokey of LS]

yea right... thnx for making .001 percent of uo happy again for a week.

 

[Flora Green]

Thank you Regine, for devoting time to making this game better!!!


Please ignore the people crying about how nothing is ever good enough.

Uh no, she didn't devote much time to it. She's only been there a short while and the plants are essentially a last minute thing. By her own admission they weren't planned or on the radar. And she also stated that while cross-pollinating would take some time, SELF-POLLINATING wouldn't. She simply took the easier route which, just like bonsai, will result in this being all but dead in a few weeks. Now be sure to respond with more name calling and insults. The mods seem to be glossing over it.

 

[NaKasha Saran]

Can't remember when the plants came out - but can give a bit of a time frame at least. Back when AoS was getting close to release, Augur was working on the 5th gen of plants and had to scrap them within the last month (or so) leading up to AoS's launch because they were running out of time and had to work on other stuff for the launch. So whenever AoS released, it was, I'm guessing, at least 6 months before that that plants came out (possibly longer, just can't remember).

I started in the August prior to the release of Age of Shadows which was in February of 2002. (I remember it was February because I had actually gotten 1 million in gold for Christmas from my brother and saved it for 2 months to buy my first 18x18!!! It was so hard not to spend that gold! Har!)

The plants I know were and had been in the game for a little while at least in August because a friend of the guy who brought me to Ultima had a full set of the plants already from growing and crossing them and she had given me a bag of random unlabelled seeds to practice with. I distinctly recall killing them all on accident >.<

Thank you Regine, for devoting time to making this game better!!!


Please ignore the people crying about how nothing is ever good enough.

Obviously you are just reading what you want to read here on this thread. We're excited as hell about the new plants, thankful and gracious, however we just want them implemented right and we are willing to wait for however long it takes for them to be added in right with their own chart or with the existing chart. We don't care how it's done as long as it's done right and inline with the plant system currently in place...

The Devs can push this addition back for six months... or longer... WE DON'T FRIGGIN CARE! We just want it done right the first time!

And the right way is: the system that has stood the test of time. Not some half-assed loot drop or quest that has failed in the past.

What is so hard about looking at past implementations and asking, or even checking out things... and realizing, "Hey, that didn't go over too well."

So go troll some other thread, please.

 

[DevilsOwn]

*raises hand ignoring dirt under nails*

add my name to the list of people willing to wait for it to be done properly.... this would include ability to cross pollinate and correctly hued plants

but if I had to choose one, I'd take the crossing ability over color... I've learned to live with solid color plants, but I've never been able to co-habitate with bonsai

 

[Lily]

OK well add MY name to those who think another cross pollinating system is UNnecessary. And yes, I'm a gardener...

I used to run garden shops and I had plant vendors in some of the busiest vendor malls on Pacific. After a while it just got tedious... and for me the MOST tedious part was the crosspollination process. Yes, I realize that not having the seeds labeled at all will mean I could plant 120 seeds (what I typically do on each of 3 characters when I garden... 360 plants at a time...yes, i'm insane) and not get the plant I want... but is that likely? NO. Statistically speaking, I will get what I want if I plant enough... and then I'll put the rest on vendors. I have never overpriced my plants, and I have always sold nearly every plant I grew. The exception being the Bonsai... and I don't blame the failure of that system on the lack of pollination options... those were just plain ugly and don't really fit into the decor of most of the homes I see. I have one white bonsai in my house... which is TOTALLY full of plants. I think if they had made 5 hues of that cute little potted sunflower we'd be telling a totally different tale.

I JUST want new plants. I like that the seeds will never be labeled... I LOVE the day 7 backpack opening surprise. I'm sorry that some of you don't like that and prefer cross pollinating... but for me... I AM GETTING WHAT I WANT... NEW PLANTS! All the complaining is really lame. You're making gardeners sound like a bunch of whiny ingrateful women. I think we should be happy that we have gardening at all in this game where 99% of the players are more into PVP and Peerless and things like that. Perhaps not the attitude you want all gardeners to have, but I'd much rather just have the plants as they plan to introduce them than to wait around for them to CHANGE their plans... possibly to never get new plants at all.

And if it turns out that the new plants are all ugly... it won't matter if you can crosspollinate them or not. Nobody's going to buy an ugly plant after the first week or two. How many barrel cacti do YOU sell?

Lily

 

[canary]

whiny ingrateful women

Wow, a female sexist. Yay.

 

[Eslake]

You're making gardeners sound like a bunch of whiny ingrateful women.

*GASP!*
Lily! How Could you?

And if it turns out that the new plants are all ugly... it won't matter if you can crosspollinate them or not. Nobody's going to buy an ugly plant after the first week or two. How many barrel cacti do YOU sell?

I don't know about that. Some people still ride ridgebacks.
The right kind of ugly can be cute.

You're very much in the minority as to preference of systems, but I am glad some will find the way they are adding them as a good thing.

I don't consider the complaints to be Whiny though. Gardening was added 6 years ago, and since that time only 1 plant has been added (with direction and color variations, the Bonsai). And now they are adding a whole new set of plants but doing it in a way that the vast majority who grow plants do not like.

True, gardening isn't a "skill" in the game, but that really doesn't matter. It is a game play choice as much as anything else. Getting new plants is not some kind of "Bonus" they're throwing us, it is as legitimate as adding new monsters or quests, but some are acting as if adding these new plants is Doing a Favor for the gardeners.

If there were no new monsters, dungeons, or loots added for 6 years, do you think the warriors and tamers would be "whining" if they finally got new content and discovered it was dungeon the size of WBB that had nothing but rats in it and complained?

 

[Silly Seadog]

If there were no new monsters, dungeons, or loots added for 6 years, do you think the warriors and tamers would be "whining" if they finally got new content and discovered it was dungeon the size of WBB that had nothing but rats in it and complained?

Arrrrr, and don' ferget the rats would drop coins that don't stack and will be turned in for a new collection but can only be done so one by one! More complainin'!!

 

[Sarphus]

Power of positive thinking? That would make it a 3 year system. Do you honestly think, given the current state of UO, that UO will still be here in 3 years?

Of course it will. Don't be ridiculous.

 

[Lily]

Wow, a female sexist. Yay.

Would it help if I characterize pvp whining as "bunch of male teenagers whining" ? I'll make sure I do that next time.

Sorry to offend you with my sexism, I'm getting bitter in my old age. I'd love to think there are some men who have their boxers in a wad over this too... somehow I doubt that's the case.

Lily

 

[Eslake]

Would it help if I characterize pvp whining as "bunch of male teenagers whining" ? I'll make sure I do that next time.

Sorry to offend you with my sexism, I'm getting bitter in my old age. I'd love to think there are some men who have their boxers in a wad over this too... somehow I doubt that's the case.

Lily

There are PvPers whining? Wow! When did that ever happen?

I just call the more accomplished whiners Fizgig. If you ever watched The Dark Crystal you might remember why. That little tantrum has stuck in my head for years.

But my boxers are in the dresser, she makes me wear these skin tight little things leave nothing to the imagination. *sigh* I'm so abused.

 

[Lily]

*GASP!*
Lily! How Could you?


I don't know about that. Some people still ride ridgebacks.
The right kind of ugly can be cute.

You're very much in the minority as to preference of systems, but I am glad some will find the way they are adding them as a good thing.

I don't consider the complaints to be Whiny though. Gardening was added 6 years ago, and since that time only 1 plant has been added (with direction and color variations, the Bonsai). And now they are adding a whole new set of plants but doing it in a way that the vast majority who grow plants do not like.

True, gardening isn't a "skill" in the game, but that really doesn't matter. It is a game play choice as much as anything else. Getting new plants is not some kind of "Bonus" they're throwing us, it is as legitimate as adding new monsters or quests, but some are acting as if adding these new plants is Doing a Favor for the gardeners.

If there were no new monsters, dungeons, or loots added for 6 years, do you think the warriors and tamers would be "whining" if they finally got new content and discovered it was dungeon the size of WBB that had nothing but rats in it and complained?

The bird in hand...

Look, I love gardening in game. I kill green things IRL, so being able to actually grow my pixel plants is pretty fun. I have a pixel house that's overflowing with botanicals and like I said, I love the day when I open the backpack to see that all the lil bowls of green have sprouted. I get girly goosy giggles about it, really I do. BUT... when you think about the fact that it took them THIS LONG to get these plants into the NEXT PUBLISH... plants that I personally have been hearing about for YEARS... do you really really think it's a good idea to try and force their hand into creating a whole new system? It could be months, years, or umm NEVER before we actually saw the result of this little campaign to get another set of plants that cross pollinate.

Let's let them bring these in and those of you who want another cross-pollination plant system just keep campaigning for ADDITIONAL... not to change the ones they have ready. How would that work as a compromise? I'd personally like to see more useable plant resources but not as much as I'd just like to be able to grow something new!

I think I'll go kill some junk in Tokuno tonight and grow some Bonsai and give them away in Luna, just for fun.

Lily

 

[Lily]

There are PvPers whining? Wow! When did that ever happen?

I just call the more accomplished whiners Fizgig. If you ever watched The Dark Crystal you might remember why. That little tantrum has stuck in my head for years.

But my boxers are in the dresser, she makes me wear these skin tight little things leave nothing to the imagination. *sigh* I'm so abused.

Why do I have the feeling that I know you?

I saw Dark Crystal when I was a kid. I am afraid I don't remember it that well, I just remember seeing it. Boxers are gross, btw. It just sounded better than briefs and alot of people don't know what broxers are.

Lily

 

[Eslake]

Let's let them bring these in and those of you who want another cross-pollination plant system just keep campaigning for ADDITIONAL... not to change the ones they have ready. How would that work as a compromise? I'd personally like to see more useable plant resources but not as much as I'd just like to be able to grow something new!

I won't complain about getting new plants. I'm glad we are getting them.

But the way she has done them is More work than simply adding them as plants 18-32 and using the already existing system.
The only thing she would have had to change was to have the cross-breading routine disallow crossing under18s with over17s.


Since they can barely get requests for artwork through on things they consider Major, and plants are so low they aren't even "on their radar" I don't expect to ever see more plants after this.
There just aren't very many left in the client's graphics that would work as growable plants.

That isn't to say we won't see new resources on existing(and the new) plants at some point. But I'm definitely not going to hold my breath waiting for it.

Why do I have the feeling that I know you?

I don't know, you play Pac and I'm on LS/SP so .. *shrug*

You should watch the Dark Crystal and Labyrinth at least every 2 years. I'll poke around for a clip of Fizzgig's tantrum.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

I don't agree that all of the items that drop from paragons for the chocolate system need to be availabe via plants. If that happens then you lose a bonus for hunting paragons. Ilshenar paragons already aren't hunted that much simply because the reward normally does not equal the work. If they do make it so the chocolate is taken away from the Ilshenar paragons then they should at least throw them a bone and give them a lesser chance to drop ML artifacts and can the junk artifacts that no on in their right mind would use (cavorting club anyone?).

Okay, but here's the thing... there needs to be something I like to call "logic" when applying things to a game. Above and beyond "let's put something really nifty into the game," what actual sense does it make (and, no, I'm not talking about realism, but good game design) for Paragons to carry the ingredients for chocolate? Yeah, you could farm paragon mongbats all day, I suppose, but honestly, paragons already have a chance to drop treasure chests, minor artifacts, and some decent loot -- now we slap in chocolate ingredients? Because there are so many GM cooks in the world that chocolate ingredients on paragons makes sense?

I do agree about the plants. I don't know any really good systems that rely on the RNG. The problem here is not only does it rely completely on the RNG but it makes you wait 9 days to see if you got junk or not. If they want to make it rely on the RNG exclusively then they should make the grow time be 2-3 days with a 50% chance to bump that time with fertile dirt. If they want to keep the 9 day grow time then they really need to label the seeds. People get burnt out fast when trying for a certain plant when the RNG keeps giving them the same old junk.

Yeah, I didn't even look at it from that perspective, and that's even worse. Even narrowing it down to these groups drop this, meaning you'll eventually know what you've got by where the seed came from (which, you'll of course, carefully file into a bag and never mix them up), there's still only a percentage chance you're going to get what you want.

Further, as far as people selling seeds to gardeners, how the bloody hell is anyone supposed to be able to take this at face value? No, really, I swear that this is a group 4 plant off of a liche lord. I never even hunt the group 1 mongbats. This could very possible be The Holy Grail of Plants. I want 50,000,000 gp for it.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

The price of the old plants kinda make it a low profit hobby tho...

Depends on what you're selling, and where you sell them. The prices I've paid for the plants I've used to decorate my houses with have been, by my accounting, pretty reasonable. And if I start to buy some of the black or white ones, it's definitely quite reasonable.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Thank you Regine, for devoting time to making this game better!!!

Please ignore the people crying about how nothing is ever good enough.

Somehow, only two words come to mind. The first is something a vacuum does, and the second is a direction.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

In all fairness to the UO devs (and other companies as well), WoW developers are (likely) the only ones that can and do take as much time as they feel necessary to put out an expansion. They have the (unusual) leeway to do it their way in whatever time frame they choose, without being pushed by the company to hurry up and crank out that money making expansion right now, yesterday. I would assume that gives them the time to plot out in detail how their expansions are going to go and what will be patched when.

Honestly, given the less than stellar beginning of the UO development year here after they took what must have been ages and ages to "get settled in" to their new offices at Mythic, and then being unable to share pretty much anything with us for weeks on end -- something that, by and large hasn't changed, we've simply gotten used to it now -- and that it took at least the first quarter of the year to develop this year's plan, I'm not exactly faith-ridden in Mythic's development process for UO. Of course, I'm sure Warhammer's got a much better team devoted to them -- they have to. Games Workshop (I think it is) won't hesitate to yank the Warhammer license from them if they screw this up.

That's not to say that UO devs don't have year or more long plans, but they are probably more subject to the constraints of the "make money now" company policy - that could sidetrack them from their intended goal or change their plans completely.

My counter question then would be, "What, exactly, has UO done lately that has earned them more money?" By my count, KR, had they charged for it, would have been an epic failure. Aside from that, they've sold us nothing here in the U.S., except perhaps the ever-so-difficult-to-code +20% housing increase, or the wow-it-must-have-been-hard-to-cut-and-paste-some-code-to-add seventh character slot. Maybe that hey-we've-already-broken-the-exclusive-pre-purchase-exclusives-for-our-expansion-pack-pre-order-people-that-give-us-up-front-ideas-of-how-successful-our-expansions-will-be-so-let's-just-sell-the-trinkets-we-encouraged-them-to-pre-pay-for items that they tossed on the UO store that included about as much code as any other token does (because if they don't have THAT down to a science yet, we're totally screwed). Other than that, I don't recall anything terribly exciting, and if they're expecting SA to be a well-received SKU, they're mistaken, especially since many of us pre-order people may just decide, "You know, if I just wait a year, it'll be available on the UO store anyway."

Can't remember when the plants came out - but can give a bit of a time frame at least. Back when AoS was getting close to release, Augur was working on the 5th gen of plants and had to scrap them within the last month (or so) leading up to AoS's launch because they were running out of time and had to work on other stuff for the launch. So whenever AoS released, it was, I'm guessing, at least 6 months before that that plants came out (possibly longer, just can't remember).

This is EA's biggest problem, and probably Mythic's too... there's no need to scrap a plan unless it's completely undoable. There should be design docs, and, if far enough along, enough code to work from, in order to finish something. I'd bet no one even checked the back-files (if such a thing exists, and if it doesn't, yet another mark against EA/Mythic) to see what else was/had been in the works.

Me, I hereby propose a new term, specifically for use with UO, DAoC, and Warhammer.

Mythic Fail is the new Epic Fail.

 

[DHMagicMan_1]

Has anyone in an OFFICIAL capacity responed to ANY of the concerns brought up above?

I'm a vet from way back... started playing when there was only a single facet and I've played and quit more times than I can count. Among the things that I keep coming back for are the crafting/gardening and housing stuff that none of the other MMOs offer.

I was really hoping when I saw they were adding 15 new plants that they were actually going to EXTEND the gardening system, not create another little dead end, like we have with the other "special" seeds.

I can understand why they didn't maybe want to make a new generation in between every existing plant... but why couldn't they have simply spawned three new "starting" seeds in plain and three dull colors and let this new group have a completely independant cross polination chart?

Seems pretty straight forward to me.

 

[ultima online]

Can't remember when the plants came out - but can give a bit of a time frame at least. Back when AoS was getting close to release, Augur was working on the 5th gen of plants and had to scrap them within the last month (or so) leading up to AoS's launch because they were running out of time and had to work on other stuff for the launch. So whenever AoS released, it was, I'm guessing, at least 6 months before that that plants came out (possibly longer, just can't remember).

seeds first came out when Lord Blackthorn's Revenge was released in 2002, two years before AOS was released. The same time bogglings, bog things, plague beasts and plague beast lords and all the Todd McFarland crappy artwork was introduced.

I was just kidding realy but the plants didn't come until towards the end of the solen invasion event arc and that would be 2002 I believe (maybe late 2001).

that was the rare ones that where released as part of the naturalist quest, around late 2002/early 2003 I think.

 

[Flora Green]

Has anyone in an OFFICIAL capacity responed to ANY of the concerns brought up above?

Nothing more than a cut and paste from last week's FoF which had nothing to do with the issue being discussed.

I'm a vet from way back... started playing when there was only a single facet and I've played and quit more times than I can count. Among the things that I keep coming back for are the crafting/gardening and housing stuff that none of the other MMOs offer.

That doesn't seem to matter to them anymore. It's all about monster bashing/farming.

I was really hoping when I saw they were adding 15 new plants that they were actually going to EXTEND the gardening system, not create another little dead end, like we have with the other "special" seeds.

That makes several of us.

I can understand why they didn't maybe want to make a new generation in between every existing plant... but why couldn't they have simply spawned three new "starting" seeds in plain and three dull colors and let this new group have a completely independant cross polination chart?

Seems pretty straight forward to me.

That would have been too logical.