Heroes vs Villains in UO

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I am here to speak for the truth as I see it and provide counter arguments to the silly nonsense that has passed for the philosophy of gaming promoted by players who wish to intimidate others from speaking their say.

From your point of view.

I am extremely happy that players, like yourself, are safe and snug in Trammel now. It actually leaves players like me free do something other than protecting people like you, although it leaves me wondering why we ever bothered.

The sense of entitlement displayed by people like you makes me sick. THIS GAME WAS AN OPEN PVP GAME WHEN IT LAUNCHED. Why did you bother to sign up for it if you didn't understand that???!!!

Nevermind...don't answer...just go back to collecting your items and feeling superior.

 

[Kallie Pigeon]

From your point of view.

I am extremely happy that players, like yourself, are safe and snug in Trammel now. It actually leaves players like me free do something other than protecting people like you, although it leaves me wondering why we ever bothered.

The sense of entitlement displayed by people like you makes me sick. THIS GAME WAS AN OPEN PVP GAME WHEN IT LAUNCHED. Why did you bother to sign up for it if you didn't understand that???!!!

Nevermind...don't answer...just go back to collecting your items and feeling superior.

I could have sworn you posted you didn't want to belittle me.

LIAR

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I could have sworn you posted you didn't want to belittle me.

LIAR

And I don't.

I just disagree with you.

If disagreement equates to belittlement to you, then I cannot help you.

 

[Ozymandies]

I always thought that the detective was the under-developed solution to the "crime wave" that occurred with the PKs. I saw it mentioned on this thread but then discarded.

I think if you use forensics on the corpse and get the name of the murderer, you should be able to go to a town and report it (not easy). This would produce extra penalties for the murderer. Many extra penalties have been discussed here that could be applied, from Kaleb's list of the historical penalties to something new like perma-death. But like the others, I am not sure how relevant that is to today's game of champ spawn PvP.

I am reminded of that online comic strip where the dude had too many counts, so he lost a limb every time he was killed and all that was left was his nose. The newb was carrying him around in his pocket. It was hilarious.

Another thing I would mention is that the Fel folks and the Tram folks don't seem to like each other, so schemes to bring them together generally fail.

I also agree with Shade about looting corpses. I always thought you should lose karma for looting a corpse. But then, there should be more "game" in the reputation system. Which brings up the point that the reputation system is available to help figure out who is a hero and who is a villain, but is not used much.

Which leads to my final point that, as has been mentioned here, the game is immensely complex and it would be better to use existing systems than to keep piling on.

OZ

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Thanks for the comments about detectives!


Also...

Tram folks HATE Fel folks...Fel folks LOVE Tram folks!


That was the problem!


People like me...we loved Tram folks, and tried to save them from Fel folks...but you see the thanks we got. rolleyes:

 

[Zodia]

We are about to have an experimental shard and that is going to do me a world of good. Not saying everything we put on it will be a gem, just that we will be able to try stuff that until now has been impossible due to the amount of risk.

Just to clarify, if you would be so kind, is this "experimental shard" an internal only shard for you devs to play around with or are you saying a new public shard is going to be coming soon where these experimental things are going to take place?

 

[Kallie Pigeon]

And I don't.

I just disagree with you.

If disagreement equates to belittlement to you, then I cannot help you.

I failed to see anywhere that you were trying to help me. I don't need help from anyone like you. I have always played this game with the ruleset that it had and never wanted another game to play. However as I will point out once more things were different when it first came out. The majority of players were antipk and that gradually changed. Numerous players who were well known antipks changed and went red due to frustration from not having the same advantages as th pk's. Most of them went on to quit playing since they did not find pking a satifying experience. Things were changing. I am still here so obviously I learned better than the other antipks. You all pretend like it was so great back then only because you lack any abiltiy to understand other players.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

You all pretend like it was so great back then only because you lack any abiltiy to understand other players.

...and you pretend that Trammel was the ONLY solution...

...meanwhile, you speak out against anyone that is asking for anything that falls outside of your prefered playstyle...even if that means they can't enjoy theirs.

The difference between "somone like me" and someone like you, is that I actually DO understand other players...and the fact that not everyone wants the exact same thing. And rather than fighting anyone that asks for options, I advocate for them.

You were obviously very unhappy with the original ruleset of the game. It is probably for the best that the devs found something that made you happy...otherwise you probably would have quit. But what you are not realizing, is that by satisfying 'people like you'...they ruined the game for others...when that was not the only option available to them at the time...just the easiest.

I can tell you feel really passionately about Ultima Online...and I sincerely admire that...because I do as well. If I said anything to offend you, I apologize.

But when you say that *I* don't understand other players...I have to take offense...because what I am asking for is options to appeal to a broader base of players. I am not, and have never, asked for the current shards to be reverted back to the 'old days'. That is not even a realistic option at this point.

So when you say I don't understand you, but you are the one that is fighting the prospect of options for others that don't like what you like...I have to conclude that it is you that doesn't "understand other players".

 

[Evlar]

I failed to see anywhere that you were trying to help me. I don't need help from anyone like you. I have always played this game with the ruleset that it had and never wanted another game to play. However as I will point out once more things were different when it first came out. The majority of players were antipk and that gradually changed. Numerous players who were well known antipks changed and went red due to frustration from not having the same advantages as th pk's. Most of them went on to quit playing since they did not find pking a satifying experience. Things were changing. I am still here so obviously I learned better than the other antipks. You all pretend like it was so great back then only because you lack any abiltiy to understand other players.

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

I think the question in the title is an important one but ultimately far to narrow in it's scope to address the problem that comes with a split in the player base.

What I mean is naturally giving people a complete out of conflict they will almost always take it, this is just survival instinct. And this is before we even get to the Good vs Evil or Hero vs Villain however you like to put it.

The lifeblood in any good MMORPG will always be it's community, I can't speak for everyone of course, but it seems to me that a lot of people just don't value the idea of a community as much as they used to.

Part of this is the fact that MMO's over the years have gone much more mainstream and have been designed for a much larger player base than those of us who played in 97-98 and part of it is the fact that if people have no incentive to fear retribution they will ultimately do whatever they want, or in other words people are only as good as they are allowed to be.

Back to the point if you want a game that isn't lonely and bereft of challenge, you need a community and everything that it entails, that means not just the good fluffy elements but also the bad guys who play their part in making the rest of us feel good when we triumph over them or vice versa.

Regardless of what anyone says we all know that defeating an evil PC will always require a lot more thought and skill because you can't just assume a pattern after a certain point, PCs can be unpredictable whereas AI can be studied, it's patterns learned and blueprint responses are the order of the day.

So to me it isn't as narrow as Heroes vs Villains, I enjoy having a community, and that includes the heroes, the villains, the craftspeople, the dungeon runners, and anyone else in between.

That is what made this game magical to me, the buzz that a living community generates. Who honestly wants to just buy everything off of static npc vendors? Wouldn't you much rather talk to the person who smiths your gear and haggle the price once in a while? Or even just shoot the breeze while you wait for repairs?

But in a world where everyone can obtain everything on their own and nobody needs anyone elses help to do anything, it just feels like a single player game with an online chat feature.

The reality is that ultima online as it stands right now and probably as it will always be is a niche game, so the way I feel about it is, admit at least that everything post AOS was a mistake.

Because you cannot continue to import features of other games (IE: Extremely limited player interaction) that detract from the original "social experiment" theme of UO, and still expect to succeed or evolve into something better.

Games like wow and aion already do these things far better than UO ever will, I know that game companies don't like to admit they have made mistakes and you always hear past devs say things "it would be a huge step backwards in game design" which is just code for we don't make mistakes.

On the same hand I think everyone agrees there needs to be risk vs reward on both sides of the fence, you often hear risk vs reward from the pvp side but it should be applied by both sides, the heroes or even those who don't much enjoy pvp should demand real consequences for the PK's.

In this manner you end up weeding out most of the immature players when they realize it isn't as easy as just rezzing and grabbing ten of each reg and another halberd and running around naked terrorizing people again in a matter of minutes, if you have stat loss on death that is a good step in the right direction as well as some of the ideas Morganna posed in the classic shard thread to further reinforce the consequences of being the villain.

But you also have to give the villains an incentive and that means no insurance, if they potentially risk losing the majority of their character or all of it in the case of perma death, they deserve to have whatever they earn from their kills.

I think in UOs case returning to it's far more social roots should at the very least be on the drawing board, for the main production shards that does not mean the elimination of trammel before anyone thinks I am implying that, but again most everything AOS and after has largely ruined the game.

/rant

 

[Mark_Mythic]

Just to clarify, if you would be so kind, is this "experimental shard" an internal only shard for you devs to play around with or are you saying a new public shard is going to be coming soon where these experimental things are going to take place?

It's going to be a for players. In fact, we **intend** to start it next week with some of the faction stuff we have been working on. Please keep in mind, this is the beginning of the faction revamp, we just need to kind of vet it to the players to see if we are going in a direction that is fun. It will probably only be on the experimental shard for several publishes as we continue to develop it. We've been working on this project "on the side" for about 3 publishes and we don't want to keep going down this road if none of the PVPers want to go with us.

The only thing that is going to be going up in this first stage is moving from 4 factions to 3, moving the locations of some of the fortresses, rolling out new (totally sweet, if I do say so myself) new fortresses, a new ranking system, better pvp stat tracking, and some new rules governing faction items. That's just a little teaser for ya, the details will come out... well... I guess they will come out next week.

 

[Jhym]

I'm very glad people are really discussing the issue, even though they keep going into the "AOS was bad, Trammel this, Felucca that" discussion that is somewhat tangential.

I very much like your ideas Mark, about adding further interest to the PK playstyle. And Morgana, you have this odd ability to make disparate points in the same post that I agree and disagree with simultaneously.

Some further thoughts, reflecting on the original topic AND the discussions we are having:

1) What if Hero Vs Villain was an intimate subsystem that affected all of the facets of the shard? HOWEVER, in the trammel rulesets, those that were considered "Villain" by wont of their redness would actually be AVATARS of themselves in the trammel ruleset, made into creatures to fight by those trammel folks? With certain powers (ie call followers, call-to-home, herding monsters, etc) that would give them something to work with? So, the redness prisoner aspect becomes -- they are REQUIRED to log in to their character, pick from a small group of monster/npc types they can "avatar", and play evil in the good lands of Trammel? (perhaps they are "renowned" or otherwise the monster is named their name) They do this for some period of time as evil, they get the standard things monsters get, some special abilities, once they die a set number of times as a creature in the other lands, they get to come back to their primary character on Felucca.

Effectively, make them do something mildly annoying, but still interesting and fun, but also usable from the dev's standpoint (what if you could time your events such that there were enough murderers to spawn and fight with your invasion forces?) The pkers would get their fill of trying to kill blues, but normal character would likely be able to deal with them and fight them off. Or they could call upon friends to come help deal with them.

and they wouldn't feel like they were being taken advantage of by the pkers

Yes, it could be exploited to build gank squads, but if you set up the spawning mechanism properly gank guilds shouldn't be able to plan where their members appear.


2) AoS -- as a tangential discussion, what if you ONLY had access to item properties if you were Master Item ID and Arms Lore or above? And that the original discriptions were brought back to all items for weapon/armor? Yes, folks would likely have the skills within two days for those that needed them, but for the basic player experience and the argument that item properties are the true evil, wouldn't this revert some of the feel of the game to what it was without removing everything?

3) Heroes -- what if, based on the above Villain description, Heroes gained in valor or spirituality by finding and removing those pker "avatars"? However, they gain far more if they find the pkers in Felucca proper and destroy their "essence". So, the above pker would have both his monster avatar, where he's having fun gunning down miners, and his original character "ghost" that is wandering Felucca. If the Hero finds both and kills them (for the ghost, perhaps excorcism) the pker is restored after a time, and the Hero gets quite a bit of fame and notoriety. (Plus the pker gets a list of those who killed him... for other purposes later on?)


Using some of these mechanic kind of ideas, you add in a way for people to "deal" with those pkers in multiple ways, and for the pker to keep playing but to have to give back to the community as well.


4) We need overriding Heroes and Villains at the shard level that can mobilize people to WANT to fight. Either the devs have to introduce powerful characters (ie "good" EM, "bad" EM) with disparate goals and just let them loose; or they need to give individuals ways to become those types of characters and reasons to do so.

I really like the idea of community development and world-changing being merged into the ideas of Hero and Villain, as I think it is part of their role.

What do you all think?

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I think some of your ideas are sound, on the surface...but as Mark_Mythic pointed out above...any noncon-PvP is going to be Fel based...so the idea of allowing players to play as monsters in Trammel is probably not going to fly.

Look at the reaction this kind of discussion has illicited from a couple of hardcore anti-PvP posters. Do you think those people will be okay being PKed by someone just because that player happens to look like an orc, or an Ogre Lord?

It's a very complicated problem now because of the Fel/Tram split. I don't see any meaningful outcome from this discussion that ends in the status quo. That ship sailed on May 4th, 2000 (launch of UO:R). The only way you can ever have a true 'hero vs. villain' or 'good vs. evil' system in UO is to either revert the shards (and lose 80% or more of the current players)...or start a new shard that doesn't have a PvP switch or split.

That's why the discussion goes off on the tangent of "Fel this, and Trammel that"...because it is seminal to the topic.

 

[Derium of ls]

*considers what one might be able to do while dead*

Let me think about it some more. Go to dead parties? Be greatful? Possess weak willed monsters? Pick something up that can only be picked up while dead? Hmm... Well, we have the virtue of spirituality that we aren't doing anything with... Hmm...

I ran a Large tower in fel many years ago for PK's, I myself was not one, but GM's would be there ALL THE TIME hanging out with us, the reds that were in stat loss would be dead in the tower just hanging out talking with GM's, dead players back then (not sure about now) could play chess/checkers while dead, so that let players pass the time while waiting to be out of statloss without running a macro in their own house. so yes they were punished by being removed from the PvP they enjoyed, but at the same time no so much where they were turned away from the notion of being a PK.

I pretty much created a dead-PK town, and even a few rival guilds got along while being there

And to remark on the thought of perma-death, sorry to say, but I still feel that taking a page out of Diablo 2s book here... 'Hardcore mode'.

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

I have continued some thinking about social feedback systems. One of the systems not yet discussed in great detail is the problem of association. I'm talking about blues traveling with reds for an overall affect on non-pk players.

To "Run" with a red the blue needs to by association change from neutral blue. This can be a time based association. Lets say there is a red gating and running around some location with blues. Somehow the blues by virtue of association needs to change to gray. They need to remain gray for some long term duration. It is the non-combative association that needs to be measured for the gray timer. I don't know how to measure the association if those if they gang together as an unconnected association "off-line" and meet for the attack. This would put a red with many blues and how does the system recognize the group of assault like blues that block the attacked player. It is easy if the blues heal the red they go gray, but there are some "gray areas" that needs feedback into the system.

This would help with that old problem. It may not be necessary in today's game, but in the old lands before trammel it would have helped. The association problem was actually a control and resolution nightmare for groups hunting pk's or fighting pk's during an assault.

Considering this for a few more minutes I have more to add. If a group of blues band together with a red then the long term association should cause those players to also become red. It becomes a red band because they are outlaws as a group of associated individuals.

Here are two concepts I have available to consider. They are really things that would have helped before trammel.

1. Trapping.

1 2 3
4 O 5
6 7 8

If a player is trapped in movement from center to either available 2,4,5,7 locations then a check is made if any of those locations are friends and if not then all parties surrounding individual go gray. This assumes movement to 1,3,6,8 are not available. I forget how many degrees of freedom movement has in UO. Movement check includes inanimate objects like trees or items in the check for players trapping others.

2. Association tracking

Each individual has eight short term associations and eight long term associations. These associations are characters that have time counted and assigned outside of bank areas. A short term association can become a long term association after a tick count in the long term list is exceeded, where the long term list element is dropped from the list.

Associations determine when within the association radius whether your color is blue (innocent), gray (devious), or red (murderer). An association check occurs within the radius and colors are modified appropriately. Here is another thing. Association can also occur by being second or third level away from the gray or red. The second or third level occurs because your associate of your list has a red on their list on either the long term or short term list.

The reason for the short term list is to support a character that is dissociating themselves from a long term group. Also, would help adjust to any short term group formations that would act deviously.

The problem intended to solve is where members can be a loosely nit rag-tag team that acts deviously to intrude on the freedoms of others. Thus, a group of all innocents that have no associative gray or red in their party would remain blue and innocent during the altercation.

IF an event where all members in the association region have devious associates then it is an all out battle and there are no Hero/Villian fighting. All members in the region show gray or red and it is all purely war.

-Lorax

 

[Jhym]

... True, but everything I've been reading thus far doesn't give non-pker types ANY reason to do non consensual pvp.

At all.

Thus, you either have to give those people a VERY VERY VERY good reason to want to put themselves in danger, OR you have to introduce the pvp danger in a slightly more... carebear... kind of way.

So then, for both consensual and non consensual pvp, what in the world would entice people to put themselves in danger who have no reason to do so with the current state of the game?

Lumping everyone back into the same gene pool with no reason just means people will leave. But, on the other hand, if your bread and butter is fun pvp, why would you think having non-cons around would be fun?

The only reason I can think of for such disparate groups to get into the same areas: highly desirable resources or enticement to build/generate desirable areas on the other facets of a server.

By that, I mean having some areas in Felucca that directly affect areas in the other facets, for good or ill, depending on whom is in the Felucca spots and what they are doing.

An example might be the ant colonies. If no one is doing the water quest, eventually other dirt mounds start appearing and ants start popping up into the overworld.

What if there were several distinct areas in the Feluccan badlands, easily accessible but defensible, that would cause certain undesirable spawns in the Trammel/Tokuno/Ter-mur areas? Perhaps a large graveyard in Felucca that spawns undead through "rifts" into Trammel. The graveyard spawns can be reduced by completing certain quests (digging up bad graves, excorcising, etc.) The trammel folks would have a reason to go to Felucca, to stop the spawns; there would be Feluccans who would want the spawns to continue, or not. Perhaps the area also affects certain spots in Felucca -- if the area is "good" the champion spawns all require one less skull to complete; if "bad" they all spawn a demi-boss to assist the boss; if "neutral" they work as they do now.

This gives EVERYONE a reason to go to Felucca, to these spots.

If you don't have an overriding, demanding persona to push people into putting themselves in danger, you MUST resort to altruism or greed.

Which is amusing to me

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

I would like to answer the question of "why have any participation" by presenting two proposals. Proposal one is related to observations and two is related to rewards.

One:

I learned studying control system theory that nothing is controllable if not observable. So I propose that villain actions are made observable. This is related to reporting murders, but I expand it from reporting a murder count to keeping track of aspects of the murder.

A murder takes place at a location, a time, and by some number of associated group members. On each bank there would be a log of actions that could be downloaded to your in game map to highlight hot spots of devious activity. Place a mouse over the hot spot and a time range and maybe even day of the week pops-up at some color for probability that you would find deviant acts there.

Now, each person in game pledges allegiance to a particular city. Upon death an item id is performed on all looted items from the innocents' corpse and that is accumulated in the posting as a weight of items toward reward points. The wanted log on the allegiant bank displays the amount of rewarded justice points accumulated from slaying the deviant.

Because of pledging allegiance some cities will have higher rewards.

Two:

Hero's are those that gain in justice by slaying the deviant or murderer, but sacrifice their reward points to humility virtue.

The reward points can either go toward a glorious reward of some artifact or if sacrificed of these points to humility gain and gain in humility past one level get a special reward. Each humility level they gain they get to choose an NPC follower that will travel as a companion and that can have some skills selected. The NPC follower will during an altercation attack, using the skills you chose, at the lowest health or nearest hostile. Thus, the follower is not controllable by the soon to be Hero, but acts on their behalf to the path toward Heroism. A player that has a follower can dress the companion in the armor and clothing as desired. The maximum skills a companion can have is 500 or some reasonable number.

A Hero is the player that has gained three levels of humility and sacrificed their rewards and has reached the maximum justice. This player now has gained Hero status and has additional benefits.

A Hero can have some benefit in the city they have gained the highest Hero status. Those are determined by the developers or some other creative designers.

-Lorax

p.s.

If you wanted to incorporate forensics you could have the bank post hot spots and have a person skilled in forensics go investigate the murder and then that act causes the observation of the altercation to be posted on the bank board. Maybe that person can identify associations or whatever.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Lumping everyone back into the same gene pool with no reason just means people will leave. But, on the other hand, if your bread and butter is fun pvp, why would you think having non-cons around would be fun?

Here's the problem...they tried this already with champ spawns and powerscrolls. What happened?

Everyone that wanted powerscrolls waited until they appeared on vendors, eBay, or some other cash for UO item websites...and they just bought them. There is nothing that you can entice people with in a game like current UO because everyone either has enough gold to just buy what they want, or they can use real cash to buy the item...or the gold to buy the item with.

That is the core problem with tying the game so closely to items. EA ties every expansion to items now, and in turn...you the player...have to go out and buy said expansion to access the new items. It is a never ending cycle, and self perpetuating one as well...in theory. In practice, the hamsters eventually figure out that running on the wheel doesn't get them anywhere...and they stop running on it. So the next time an expansion (item pack) is launched, a few less people bother with it than last time...and so on, and so on...until the revenue stream dries up to a point that they just shut the game down.

The idea is to find something that doesn't involve items that gets players interested in the game again. This is the only way to set UO apart from the newer, flashier, more populated games on the market.

Sadly, there has been nothing since the original UO that has done all of the things right that UO did...otherwise, none of us would even be having these discussions.

What did UO do right?

- A large world without zones (that's gone now)
- A sandbox environment that didn't force players to create characters within specific classes or templates (not completely gone, but getting there)
- Houses you can place and own
- A truly immersive world with heroes and villains (gone)
- A community based environment where players needed to rely on one another (gone)
- An easy to use/easy to understand system that allowed players to just jump in and play the game without a spreadsheet and a calculator (gone)

See where I am going?

What do we have now?
- Houses you can place and own, and modify to look like McDonald's, Trash Dumps, Neon colored lava pits, Rivers on top of roofs, or...create your own obscene saying.
- Items. Lot's and lot's and lot's of items.

At some point, Mythic needs to break away from the items, items, items, philosophy. They need to re-discover what made people want to play this game before the deluge of items.

The only reason I can think of for such disparate groups to get into the same areas: highly desirable resources or enticement to build/generate desirable areas on the other facets of a server.

By that, I mean having some areas in Felucca that directly affect areas in the other facets, for good or ill, depending on whom is in the Felucca spots and what they are doing.

An example might be the ant colonies. If no one is doing the water quest, eventually other dirt mounds start appearing and ants start popping up into the overworld.

What if there were several distinct areas in the Feluccan badlands, easily accessible but defensible, that would cause certain undesirable spawns in the Trammel/Tokuno/Ter-mur areas? Perhaps a large graveyard in Felucca that spawns undead through "rifts" into Trammel. The graveyard spawns can be reduced by completing certain quests (digging up bad graves, excorcising, etc.) The trammel folks would have a reason to go to Felucca, to stop the spawns

Why would they want to stop the spawns? More importantly, would they even care if there were spawns at all? Unless these spawns made it impossible for them to camp high-end item dropping peerless bosses and so on, I doubt many, if any, would even notice.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

So am I a hero ?

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

So am I a hero ?

No...no you are not...

(jk Ahu)

 

[Mark_Mythic]

The way the game is designed, going red is not supposed to be a good thing. Like, it is supposed to be a punishment... making you a pariah. Of course, it doesn't work that way but there is no indication that the original design had being red a class.

I am very interested in making some kind of repercussion for helping a red or grouping a red. Like, maybe it makes you turn grey and you are culpable for the crimes he commits for 10 minutes after you help him. Not saying I'm doing this, just considering it.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

We already know you can't tell us whats coming, we're already grateful for any communication...

I have a very elaborate idea thats pretty easy to script which could make the fact of going red more realist than, oh god will punish you by nerfing your skills because your soul is corrupted and god only likes good guys.

I think it should go without saying that any red healing or in the vicinity of a red without being attacked should be flagged for yeah, up to an hour, why not ? This sounds logical to me...

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

The way the game is designed, going red is not supposed to be a good thing. Like, it is supposed to be a punishment... making you a pariah. Of course, it doesn't work that way but there is no indication that the original design had being red a class.

I am very interested in making some kind of repercussion for helping a red or grouping a red. Like, maybe it makes you turn grey and you are culpable for the crimes he commits for 10 minutes after you help him. Not saying I'm doing this, just considering it.

I hate to keep harping on this...I really do...but what's the point now?

People that play in Fel don't care if they are red or blue or anymore. In reality, there shouldn't even be a red or blue in the current game. It serves no purpose. Restricting reds to Fel is...well, stupid. If the world is going to be divided into PvP areas and non-PvP areas the way it is now, then crossing into PvP areas equates to consent. Why not just put in a PvP switch and create 1 ruleset everywhere. Players without the PvP switch turned on cannot help those that have it on, and players that have it on can't attack those that don't.

It's stupid. It's unrealistic. And it goes against everything that UO once stood for...

...but really, what the _____ is the difference now? Anything UO ever was is pretty much dead now, being replaced by a cheap plastic WoW clone.

I am sorry for being so cynical, but your ideas are very interesting...if they had been implemented on May 3rd 2000.

What purpose does punishing reds in Fel now achieve? They are stuck in Fel, they can't attack anyone that doesn't want to be attacked...so what exactly are they doing wrong? The devs that put in UO:R setup a world where you have a PvP area that is meant for PvP...what is the purpose of preventing or punishing PvP in those areas?

Again...your ideas on say, a Classic Shard, would RULE. In the current game...I am afraid they are pretty pointless.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

I think they got your point, Morgana...

Patience is a virtue, let us see.

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

The way the game is designed, going red is not supposed to be a good thing. Like, it is supposed to be a punishment... making you a pariah. Of course, it doesn't work that way but there is no indication that the original design had being red a class.

I am very interested in making some kind of repercussion for helping a red or grouping a red. Like, maybe it makes you turn grey and you are culpable for the crimes he commits for 10 minutes after you help him. Not saying I'm doing this, just considering it.

Before Trammel the best loot was from other players that accumulated the vanquishing katana's and silver slayers or invulnerable armor pieces. The best "monsters" and the most fun to fight were other players. Why fight a monster for an unlucky chance at a rare or good drop when you could fight a player with all the good items already.

One of the things many of us did were to only wear cheap bone armor. If you were going out with maybe 5 friends then you could wear the dexer suit chain tunic and legs, plate arms, gloves, and helmet or the leather mage suit. Don't let people fool you about this game being item based as though it is a new thing. UO was always item based with the better suit allowing you to be better in pvp. I like the items we have now, but I like those before the changes too.

One of the reasons to fight other red's was to get their item drops too and it went both ways.

-Lorax

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Whats this troll supposed to accomplish ?

Won't work here... all old timers know that even though items made a difference, it wasn't a rare sight to see a naked player with an original approach get to kill a player with full invuln plating.

Although items were important, they weren't setting anyone apart like you claim it.

What does it have to do with heroes and villains anyways ?

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

I hate to keep harping on this...I really do...but what's the point now?

People that play in Fel don't care if they are red or blue or anymore. In reality, there shouldn't even be a red or blue in the current game. It serves no purpose. Restricting reds to Fel is...well, stupid. If the world is going to be divided into PvP areas and non-PvP areas the way it is now, then crossing into PvP areas equates to consent. Why not just put in a PvP switch and create 1 ruleset everywhere. Players without the PvP switch turned on cannot help those that have it on, and players that have it on can't attack those that don't.

It's stupid. It's unrealistic. And it goes against everything that UO once stood for...

...but really, what the _____ is the difference now? Anything UO ever was is pretty much dead now, being replaced by a cheap plastic WoW clone.

I am sorry for being so cynical, but your ideas are very interesting...if they had been implemented on May 3rd 2000.

What purpose does punishing reds in Fel now achieve? They are stuck in Fel, they can't attack anyone that doesn't want to be attacked...so what exactly are they doing wrong? The devs that put in UO:R setup a world where you have a PvP area that is meant for PvP...what is the purpose of preventing or punishing PvP in those areas?

Again...your ideas on say, a Classic Shard, would RULE. In the current game...I am afraid they are pretty pointless.

If it were this way then those players that have pvp disabled need to be highlighted by a color and have push through enabled. Or, be booted outside the pvp conflict region so they cannot trap or interract with the altercation at all. I like booted outside the conflict region myself. Otherwise, they could pull monsters and then hide.

-Lorax

p.s.
I don't think reds should have stat or skill loss.

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

Whats this troll supposed to accomplish ?

Won't work here... all old timers know that even though items made a difference, it wasn't a rare sight to see a naked player with an original approach get to kill a player with full invuln plating.

Although items were important, they weren't setting anyone apart like you claim it.

What does it have to do with heroes and villains anyways ?

And what does all the junk you throw out about the seers have to do with this thread except to troll everyone else?

Hero's and villians have to do with before trammel. My point is to add in mechanisms that would have aided a system without trammel. I was addressing my point to Mark because he mentioned that reds were not supposed to be a "class", but it also had to do with getting items. I know reds didn't only get armor, but it was resources too. They could kill three people in Covetous and get 3k feathers at a time from three kills and I know it wasn't only about getting armor or weapons. Obtaining items has much to do with Hero's and Villians.

Naked players were traveling with a group and were secondary to the altercation. They came in to trap other players or steal items during the fighting. Any kills they got were purly coincident with the event since they were close in quarters and the target was low in health. There was no stealth in the beginning. They also used blue healers by running off-screen and return at full health from their partner mages, which couldn't be attacked unless the targeted person attacked them first whereby going gray and the mages could then kill the targeted player and remain blue. There were lots of one hit "bugs" with heavies, halberds, or multiple magery spells going off simultaneous that an attacker didn't need any armor, but these were really bugs.

-Lorax

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Oh thats not the same thing... you temper your words now.

So it was not item based... you meant something else, and if I was a troll you wouldn't have clarified your point and made sense finally.

The seers were the heart of heroes and villains dear Lorax... the word says it, they were to witness the development of community and spread order and chaos in a fair way so people would have something to compare their backs to. That was the goal of the whole FoA story, to get people to take sides, philosophically so it wouldn't only be about items.

But I can't expect people to understand that, I have in fact been trying to get people to understand just one part of my dissertations for more than a year now, without success. And it isn't that people cannot understand, or that I don't speak clearly... it's just people are still traumatised (and I'm not using the word in a casual way) about that era and they don't want to dig in their brains and remember. Because back then, I could communicate my point clearly and people would dig it, which is why they invited a 14 years old in the seer team in the first place, they recognized my ideas.

I was even the one to hold the armageddon scroll and the blackgem at the biggest seer event (hedge maze) of these days on atlantic. I was the villain, I know exactly what I am talking about, because guess what. I hid beneath the maze with the scroll and the gem, the goal was me actually dying, because there was over 300 players out there most of which knew the secret passage under... I was even setup and ready to fill the corridor with firefields and throw purple pots at em to give them a slight challenge.

Noone even came looking... I was so desperate that I almost unhid because at the end only 50 or so players were left and they didn't look like they were going to investigate, even less use tracking or reveal to find me. But I was told to remain hidden... and I did, and I kept the blackgem and scroll until the events were over (due to the gold selling scandal which got all of us fired) and guess what, I did cast Armageddon and destroy atlantic.

I have found a few people who remember that night (well it was 4 AM) when hundreds of balron destroyed everything on the shard... which got me pretty happy about it.

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

If I were to design a jail system before trammel existed I would have added a ground transport quest, the ability to hijack the transport and a way to break the person out of jail.

The first assumption is there's a player or a group of players that are to be captured. There would be some reason to capture them like they are notorious villains.

So I would propose that each town has a jail and there is a method to capture. So the person that would get the last blow would have a gump open that allows them to either take the kill or capture them. If they select capture the villain or villain's would mount a horse and not be able to control their direction or cast or do anything other than yell.

Once mounted a rope points to the capturer identifying who captured them and the prisoner is automatically set to follow the capturer. This capturer cannot teleport, recall, sacred journey (I know...), gate, or use a moonstone or anything. The capturer can only walk using ground transportation. This person needs to make it to the jail in order to claim the reward or get points or virtues or whatever. So now here the capturer may need a party in order to make it safely to the town and if that person dies they lose the captured player.

Also, if a player kills the capturer that person gets a gump to ask if they want to transport the original captured player. Thus, they may become gray signifying they took control of a captured player. This person making it to a town will then turn blue signifying they are turning in a wanted prisoner.

Now, the person goes into jail. In jail the person can only talk or chat or whatever and they remain in jail for 30 minutes. If that player does not get broken out of jail before the 30 minutes is up the person that turned them in gets some reward points.

To break the person out of jail a group of people have to go to the jail walls and do damage to the building. If enough damage is done to the walls the person is freed, but still has to make it out of town. If any person is able to do damage they get a gump to recapture and must take that freed player back to the jail.

Now that player remains in jail for 30 minutes and there is one more thing to do...You look at the wanted board and see they are wanted in another city. You decide to chance getting the reward and again can only use ground transportation. Maybe you have to walk the prisoner from vesper through the cross-roads to Britain. You will probably need a good party with you to achieve that distance.

So, if you party (I know there weren't parties) with a group of players they would all get some of the virtue points or reward. You would get protection along the way.

If the prisoner loses connection or logs then all this happens without them seeing it, but also means they have no chance of escaping.

If a prisoner successfully escapes they become more notorious and the capturer gets no reward.

NPC Heralds yell in the city centers across the land that a prisoner by name was caught and is in jail at the location. Behind the scenes crafters are mining and hunting for feathers, chopping trees and shearing sheep for wool and are not in arms way.

But, a crafter wanting to help the capture could add wood and stone to the wall and "healing" the peerless wall boss.

-Lorax