I would like to point out that I much preferred old-skool UO where everyone ran around in whatever platemail he'd looted off the last pk who failed to pk him. I liked it back when 300k was the most amount of money anyone had ever amassed legally at the same time, and when everyone was equal in terms of their Stuff, because the stuff wasn't that great to begin with. But that game hasn't existed in more than half a decade. Let's just admit that. It's a game that is very intentionally focused on Diablo-style items. Many of us who play aren't playing for camaraderie, since our old friends don't play UO anyway, and UO is still not very socially-oriented in its interface. We play other games for camaraderie now; we play UO on the side for nostalgia, and for things like rares and decorating and crafting that don't exist in very many other games.
So please understand: complaining about the reward items isn't about greed, in wanting excessively more than you need 'just because'. It's about disappointment, feeling you deserved a better reward and being let down. For a better example: when you feel that you worked hard, and your boss intimates that you'll get a large raise, and then you don't get it, wouldn't you feel disappointed? Wouldn't you find 'greedy' to be an incorrect assessment of your motivations?
With past turn-ins - I'm thinking of clean-up Britannia - the rewards were commensurate with the junk we were trashing - perhaps even better, since I seem to recall some lovely potted plants, a singing crystal ball, and some other nifty toys, and let's face it, we were turning in whatever random crap we had lying around, some even ran out and collected more crap to throw away just to get more points. But this system - we all know that it was thrown together as a way to deal with the leftovers from the quests. That's a disappointment in itself, that there's no grand plotline, just someone tossing stuff together and hoping no one notices. On top of that, the amount of effort and storage space and time and deaths and money required to piece together a collection of these quest items is staggering, so rewarding such participation with weak items, in many cases worse or less interesting than the items being handed in, is a slap in the face. As to those who say participation itself is its own reward: I'm happy you feel such, but I don't buy that, since I wasn't impressed with any of the events in the first place. I remember good events from the old UO days, and from other games; these scripted gates with monsters pouring out, don't thrill me at all.
Let's give some specific feedback then eh?
Blessed Event Shirts - this isn't really anything special. Everyone and his brother has something like this from the AoS debacle, and in fact, those came in more styles than one shirt, and special colors too. Speaking of which, I'm still waiting for an AoS-style mea-culpa gift from the 10th Anny and Xmas disasters.
Nocturne Earrings - easily the coolest item in here, but is that really saying much? This should have been the bottom rung, not the top. Could have been better, also, by giving a choice of minor buffs, not just night sight.
RBG Sashes - not a new concept, just like the shirt, only they also devalue the existing rare sashes in game. Sigh. And sashes, like shirts, can't even be seen over most of the requisite clothing and armor, even worse in 2D when layered items can't be viewed in the paperdoll.
Scroll of Alacrity - unoriginal! I never was impressed with these scrolls, they aren't very useful for the skills that are hardest to raise anyway. But this is extra horrible, since you can't even choose the skill you want. WTS forensics alacrity scroll pst.
Sherry the Mouse Statue - I don't see the draw personally, we already have a zillion statues and spamming house NPCs/objects.
Snake Skin Boots - I can appreciate that this at least has some lore flavor, and the 2% poison resist is useful without creating balance issues. But boots are pretty ugly in both 2D and KR, I wouldn't part with my sandies for 2 PR and am loathe to see everyone in game wearing them just as they do with the AR cloaks and quivers. Perhaps better had they come in a choice of footwear styles with a choice of resists.
Knight’s Armor - this is absolutely horrible, no one will wear this when you can craft better with a 5k spined runic kit or buy a full virtue plate set.
The last year or two of UO has been a rapid decline in players and in quality, and I really believed that this promised turn-in would be EA's chance to redeem themselves and their game, their way of saying: "we're sorry we've neglected UO, that we launched KR too soon and then neglected it too, that we haven't had an expansion in years and postponed SA indefinitely, that the Magincia and Moonglow events were horrible, that the tenth anny and xmas gifts were laughable, that we forgot to bring back ToT again, that we fired our event staff and left so many old plots dead in the water."
It's not greed that motivates most of us when we criticize the events and their rewards.
It's despair.
So please understand: complaining about the reward items isn't about greed, in wanting excessively more than you need 'just because'. It's about disappointment, feeling you deserved a better reward and being let down. For a better example: when you feel that you worked hard, and your boss intimates that you'll get a large raise, and then you don't get it, wouldn't you feel disappointed? Wouldn't you find 'greedy' to be an incorrect assessment of your motivations?
With past turn-ins - I'm thinking of clean-up Britannia - the rewards were commensurate with the junk we were trashing - perhaps even better, since I seem to recall some lovely potted plants, a singing crystal ball, and some other nifty toys, and let's face it, we were turning in whatever random crap we had lying around, some even ran out and collected more crap to throw away just to get more points. But this system - we all know that it was thrown together as a way to deal with the leftovers from the quests. That's a disappointment in itself, that there's no grand plotline, just someone tossing stuff together and hoping no one notices. On top of that, the amount of effort and storage space and time and deaths and money required to piece together a collection of these quest items is staggering, so rewarding such participation with weak items, in many cases worse or less interesting than the items being handed in, is a slap in the face. As to those who say participation itself is its own reward: I'm happy you feel such, but I don't buy that, since I wasn't impressed with any of the events in the first place. I remember good events from the old UO days, and from other games; these scripted gates with monsters pouring out, don't thrill me at all.
Let's give some specific feedback then eh?
Blessed Event Shirts - this isn't really anything special. Everyone and his brother has something like this from the AoS debacle, and in fact, those came in more styles than one shirt, and special colors too. Speaking of which, I'm still waiting for an AoS-style mea-culpa gift from the 10th Anny and Xmas disasters.
Nocturne Earrings - easily the coolest item in here, but is that really saying much? This should have been the bottom rung, not the top. Could have been better, also, by giving a choice of minor buffs, not just night sight.
RBG Sashes - not a new concept, just like the shirt, only they also devalue the existing rare sashes in game. Sigh. And sashes, like shirts, can't even be seen over most of the requisite clothing and armor, even worse in 2D when layered items can't be viewed in the paperdoll.
Scroll of Alacrity - unoriginal! I never was impressed with these scrolls, they aren't very useful for the skills that are hardest to raise anyway. But this is extra horrible, since you can't even choose the skill you want. WTS forensics alacrity scroll pst.
Sherry the Mouse Statue - I don't see the draw personally, we already have a zillion statues and spamming house NPCs/objects.
Snake Skin Boots - I can appreciate that this at least has some lore flavor, and the 2% poison resist is useful without creating balance issues. But boots are pretty ugly in both 2D and KR, I wouldn't part with my sandies for 2 PR and am loathe to see everyone in game wearing them just as they do with the AR cloaks and quivers. Perhaps better had they come in a choice of footwear styles with a choice of resists.
Knight’s Armor - this is absolutely horrible, no one will wear this when you can craft better with a 5k spined runic kit or buy a full virtue plate set.
The last year or two of UO has been a rapid decline in players and in quality, and I really believed that this promised turn-in would be EA's chance to redeem themselves and their game, their way of saying: "we're sorry we've neglected UO, that we launched KR too soon and then neglected it too, that we haven't had an expansion in years and postponed SA indefinitely, that the Magincia and Moonglow events were horrible, that the tenth anny and xmas gifts were laughable, that we forgot to bring back ToT again, that we fired our event staff and left so many old plots dead in the water."
It's not greed that motivates most of us when we criticize the events and their rewards.
It's despair.
