Lets each give EA a list of suggestions for what would be hopefully SIMPLE CHANGES to the game to improve the play experience. Particulary as it would affect a new player. I'm not talking things like "Drop Tram" or "Make everything worth a lot easily stealable provided it doesn't belong to your thief type. I'm talking game features that detract from the gameplay experience from your viewpoint.
The list of minor annoyances in UO is a long one and does wear on players. We seem to know the game experience better than the changing list of devs do. The typical player experience needs to improve if UO is to attract more players. Those that are into pixel candy probably won't stay, but those who want more from a game than combat probably would if little annoyances went away and missing things like '?' were added. Lets each supply a list of what we see as minor faults and missing good points concerning the gameplay experience.
Write the suggestions starting with a brief description and then say more about it if needed. The brief descriptions will help EA's people sort through them more easily. If some points commonly turn up in the lists we give, maybe they will get changed.
Do your list in Notepad or some other basic text writer and give it some thought before posting it. If we can get changes made to the minor annoyances posing as game features, perhaps more new players will hang around.
----------------------
1) A good source of game info for new players -
What EA needs to do is make the new player experience a more positive thing by writing a more useful payers guide and supply a link to UO.STRATICS.COM so that new players are not left clueless about the game they are trying to figure out how to play. A printer-friendly version would be really nice.
2) A printable manual for using the Enhanced Client. -
I did a recent re-install of my computers operating system and re-installed the Classic Client & Enhanced Client to find the EC video problems I was having are gone. Once I find a convienent User's Guide for the EC it may get used more. Can one be supplied? Particularly a printer-friendly one.
3) An EC mod -
Can the EC window be changed so it sits between the top of the screen and the top of the taskbar? having the silly thing appear extending under the taskbar & hiding the game command bar is an annoying thing.
4) Make more than 20 regeants available from NPC vendors. -
Make playing a mage as a spellcaster instead of a melee character possible by making regeants more available then the 20 at a time currently available on NPCs. 20 regeants don't last long when most of your spells fizzle due to low skill and do little damage when they do work due to low skill.
5) Reduce the swarm tendency monsters have in the Haven area. -
Going out to learn how to fight in Haven will often have a half dozen monsters charging you. Let new players in Haven go out and attack a monster without being swarmed by 4 or 5 more while fighting the first one. Even having been in the game nearly a decade and knowing what hunting is like my newbie characters on other shards will get swarmed and driven back into Haven while the Guards wipe out the monsters instead of my character doing it. For someone new to UO combat it must be not fun in many cases. Wanting to play the great warrior Chestnuts-of-steel or the grand spellcaster Fireblaze is hard to enjoy when you have to turn tail and run as a normal thing. "Will it alaways be like this" a new player may wonder as they are running for it AGAIN.
6) Having monsters not lock on to characters inside a house and stand outside making an annoying racket would be nice. -
I play crafters and having to go outside every 10 minutes to silence the racket is annoying. I want to craft while playing the game, not run in & out to silence the crowd of monsters outside. I moved into a player town and moved out a few months later. I'd have the noises of a troll, an ettin, a snake, a harpy, a giant spider, a sewer rat, and more back again a short while after going out and silencing the last symphony of monsters. I wound up moving to Malas where all I have to put up with is an occasional vampire bat's sound effect.
7) The racket from people training in Luna. -
Can we be provided a way to block out the sound effect of that hammering on wood, or the casting of a spell over & over & over & over?
8) Having NPC characters 'converse' a bit with players would be a nice feature. -
Some kind of basic AI that responds to keywords a player says by the NPC. A bit of atmosphere to make the game world seem more alive. Not a simple change but something to toss in the hat for the next expansion, Imbueing is going to be a hard thing to top. (Thank you Devs!
8) Make Recall & Sacred Journey work more often with just NPC training. - Trying to travel by spell is very annoying when you have to hear that spell fizzle sound effect a dozen times when your trying to go somewhere to hunt. By the time you've gone through the mousing steps 7 or 8 times as a typical number of attempts required, your sense of fun has turned more to irritation.
9) Add an automatic Meditation step to the Inscription window's macroes? -
It's nice being able to avoid the ache in my wrists and hands thanks to the neat changes to the crafting system, but the Inscription one isn't of any real use due to mana quickly running out & the process stopping. Having the Inscription window detect the lack of mana and attempting to start active meditation and not halting, but waiting until there is sufficent mana for the next scroll would be nice.
10) In-game Guides & Advisors?
Having the game GM's who can't really do much to help with game problems and the EMs dedicate their worktime to being in-game Guides & Advisors for newbies would be a Good Thing(tm).
11) A command to list who is logged on a shard -
Could we get a way to get a list of which characters are logged onto the shard we are logged on?
12) A way to be directed back to our characters bodies after we find a Wandering Healer and get rezzed? -
Something like the code used in UOA that will tell you which direction a regeant on the ground is in. At least for newbies. Losing all the gear left on the body is likely to be a major discouraging loss for a new player.
13) Add a name highlight/sound effect to the chat system.
Can we get a way to set names & certain words to highlight when they scroll onto the screen via the chat system? Or if simplier, scroll onto the screen at all? It's way to easy to miss things as the scroll of words goes by while your attention is on playing the game instead of reading words that for the most part don't relate to you.
14) Include info with UO advertisments about how extensive a range of play UO has other than combat. -
I've never been that turned on by killing monsters. I played a text-based game called Gemstone from 1988 to 2007 playing the Healer class who helped other players more than hunted. UO drew me in due to a bored phase back in the fall of 2000 that had me browsing games at a store. The Crafting in UO is why I'm still here. Many of those people who play games like the Sims might try UO if they knew there was much more to UO than killing monsters all the time like in most other games.
------------------------------
I imagine I'll come up with more as I play but this is a start for me.
Anyone else want to post such a list?
Please just post lists here. Any flames or Trollspeak would be better PMed to me instead of cluttering up this thread so much the Devs decide not to wade through it.
Let's keep it positive here.
The list of minor annoyances in UO is a long one and does wear on players. We seem to know the game experience better than the changing list of devs do. The typical player experience needs to improve if UO is to attract more players. Those that are into pixel candy probably won't stay, but those who want more from a game than combat probably would if little annoyances went away and missing things like '?' were added. Lets each supply a list of what we see as minor faults and missing good points concerning the gameplay experience.
Write the suggestions starting with a brief description and then say more about it if needed. The brief descriptions will help EA's people sort through them more easily. If some points commonly turn up in the lists we give, maybe they will get changed.
Do your list in Notepad or some other basic text writer and give it some thought before posting it. If we can get changes made to the minor annoyances posing as game features, perhaps more new players will hang around.
----------------------
1) A good source of game info for new players -
What EA needs to do is make the new player experience a more positive thing by writing a more useful payers guide and supply a link to UO.STRATICS.COM so that new players are not left clueless about the game they are trying to figure out how to play. A printer-friendly version would be really nice.
2) A printable manual for using the Enhanced Client. -
I did a recent re-install of my computers operating system and re-installed the Classic Client & Enhanced Client to find the EC video problems I was having are gone. Once I find a convienent User's Guide for the EC it may get used more. Can one be supplied? Particularly a printer-friendly one.
3) An EC mod -
Can the EC window be changed so it sits between the top of the screen and the top of the taskbar? having the silly thing appear extending under the taskbar & hiding the game command bar is an annoying thing.
4) Make more than 20 regeants available from NPC vendors. -
Make playing a mage as a spellcaster instead of a melee character possible by making regeants more available then the 20 at a time currently available on NPCs. 20 regeants don't last long when most of your spells fizzle due to low skill and do little damage when they do work due to low skill.
5) Reduce the swarm tendency monsters have in the Haven area. -
Going out to learn how to fight in Haven will often have a half dozen monsters charging you. Let new players in Haven go out and attack a monster without being swarmed by 4 or 5 more while fighting the first one. Even having been in the game nearly a decade and knowing what hunting is like my newbie characters on other shards will get swarmed and driven back into Haven while the Guards wipe out the monsters instead of my character doing it. For someone new to UO combat it must be not fun in many cases. Wanting to play the great warrior Chestnuts-of-steel or the grand spellcaster Fireblaze is hard to enjoy when you have to turn tail and run as a normal thing. "Will it alaways be like this" a new player may wonder as they are running for it AGAIN.
6) Having monsters not lock on to characters inside a house and stand outside making an annoying racket would be nice. -
I play crafters and having to go outside every 10 minutes to silence the racket is annoying. I want to craft while playing the game, not run in & out to silence the crowd of monsters outside. I moved into a player town and moved out a few months later. I'd have the noises of a troll, an ettin, a snake, a harpy, a giant spider, a sewer rat, and more back again a short while after going out and silencing the last symphony of monsters. I wound up moving to Malas where all I have to put up with is an occasional vampire bat's sound effect.
7) The racket from people training in Luna. -
Can we be provided a way to block out the sound effect of that hammering on wood, or the casting of a spell over & over & over & over?
8) Having NPC characters 'converse' a bit with players would be a nice feature. -
Some kind of basic AI that responds to keywords a player says by the NPC. A bit of atmosphere to make the game world seem more alive. Not a simple change but something to toss in the hat for the next expansion, Imbueing is going to be a hard thing to top. (Thank you Devs!
8) Make Recall & Sacred Journey work more often with just NPC training. - Trying to travel by spell is very annoying when you have to hear that spell fizzle sound effect a dozen times when your trying to go somewhere to hunt. By the time you've gone through the mousing steps 7 or 8 times as a typical number of attempts required, your sense of fun has turned more to irritation.
9) Add an automatic Meditation step to the Inscription window's macroes? -
It's nice being able to avoid the ache in my wrists and hands thanks to the neat changes to the crafting system, but the Inscription one isn't of any real use due to mana quickly running out & the process stopping. Having the Inscription window detect the lack of mana and attempting to start active meditation and not halting, but waiting until there is sufficent mana for the next scroll would be nice.
10) In-game Guides & Advisors?
Having the game GM's who can't really do much to help with game problems and the EMs dedicate their worktime to being in-game Guides & Advisors for newbies would be a Good Thing(tm).
11) A command to list who is logged on a shard -
Could we get a way to get a list of which characters are logged onto the shard we are logged on?
12) A way to be directed back to our characters bodies after we find a Wandering Healer and get rezzed? -
Something like the code used in UOA that will tell you which direction a regeant on the ground is in. At least for newbies. Losing all the gear left on the body is likely to be a major discouraging loss for a new player.
13) Add a name highlight/sound effect to the chat system.
Can we get a way to set names & certain words to highlight when they scroll onto the screen via the chat system? Or if simplier, scroll onto the screen at all? It's way to easy to miss things as the scroll of words goes by while your attention is on playing the game instead of reading words that for the most part don't relate to you.
14) Include info with UO advertisments about how extensive a range of play UO has other than combat. -
I've never been that turned on by killing monsters. I played a text-based game called Gemstone from 1988 to 2007 playing the Healer class who helped other players more than hunted. UO drew me in due to a bored phase back in the fall of 2000 that had me browsing games at a store. The Crafting in UO is why I'm still here. Many of those people who play games like the Sims might try UO if they knew there was much more to UO than killing monsters all the time like in most other games.
------------------------------
I imagine I'll come up with more as I play but this is a start for me.
Anyone else want to post such a list?
Please just post lists here. Any flames or Trollspeak would be better PMed to me instead of cluttering up this thread so much the Devs decide not to wade through it.
Let's keep it positive here.
