High Seas, RMT, and Community Collections...

[RaDian FlGith]

Okay, as I understand, Bioware Mythic is planning on selling the new Britannian ship. Now, yes, you will be able to get it via Community Collection (ie: the one part of the game that cries "Please script me!") if you're willing to put a LOT of time into it, or you can spend real money on a limited time purchase.

I have several issues with this...

First, it's the Britannian ship. Why in the name of Britannia would THAT be the most difficult to obtain ship from an in-game standpoint? Most of us would consider ourselves Britannians over Gargoyles or Tokunese.

Second, Bioware Mythic, just barely more than 45 days ago, sold us the High Seas Booster Pack, and now they want MORE money out of it? I mean, I suppose you could equate it to "regular version" and "collector's edition," but this sort of seems to be a two-fisted punch.

Third, obtainable through the Community Collections? Really? I mean, again, no offense, but what casual player has a chance in hell of getting anything worthwhile from the system? Sure, you can argue that someone else could script it, put it up for sale, and then the "casual" player could buy it for tons of gold, but again, it becomes an issue of "casual" players don't have that kind of gold.

I don't know... there just seems something bass ackwards about this approach to keeping UO afloat.

 

[sherkborg]

Your correct.

 

[Nyses]

Community Collections you say, Great, easy as plop down the gold and you got one. Even the current top tier is only about 12 mill the buy in game.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Community Collections you say, Great, easy as plop down the gold and you got one. Even the current top tier is only about 12 mill the buy in game.

Well, first, I don't know a lot of casual players who have 12 million to just plop on anything. Just because the economy is skewed out of proportion does not make it follow that everyone has a boat-load of gold ready to turn in.

Second, from the manner in which it was being advertised in the chat, I would be surprised if it was anything less than 1.6 million points, and probably closer to 2 million. They want to sell them over make them easily available in game -- and consider the difference between the $3.99 wooden bookcase and the academic bookcase in-game which is a lot more difficult to obtain/craft.

 

[Goodmann]

Well, first, I don't know a lot of casual players who have 12 million to just plop on anything. Just because the economy is skewed out of proportion does not make it follow that everyone has a boat-load of gold ready to turn in.

Second, from the manner in which it was being advertised in the chat, I would be surprised if it was anything less than 1.6 million points, and probably closer to 2 million. They want to sell them over make them easily available in game -- and consider the difference between the $3.99 wooden bookcase and the academic bookcase in-game which is a lot more difficult to obtain/craft.

If a single person has played this game over the course of 1yr+ and does not have 12m in gold they should close all accounts down and seek a new game because you have FAILED

 

[Skrag]

Does anyone even do the high seas stuff anymore? Last I heard fishing was bugged and pirating was a waste of money.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Does anyone even do the high seas stuff anymore? Last I heard fishing was bugged and pirating was a waste of money.

I stopped after my 4th or 5th orc ship, it got boring. The sailing time to and from the ONLY area with pirates is beyond dull for a whole 2-3K (in a group) and a now-lame reward isn't worth it. (And this is AFTER you've resigned yourself to broken cannon ammo economics...)

As for the ship being $old.. Are we really surprised? They got a taste of what kind of crap we will shell out money for, now we can expect most things to come with a price tag. We screwed ourselves when we willingly purchased a KNOWN buggy-as-hell booster. Prepare to assume the position people…

 

[RaDian FlGith]

If a single person has played this game over the course of 1yr+ and does not have 12m in gold they should close all accounts down and seek a new game because you have FAILED

That's a ludicrous standpoint to take. I've been playing for 13 years, and while yes, I currently have about 21 million in "liquid assets," that's largely because I sold a character transfer token that I wasn't using for 17.5 million.

Why?

Because presently I play to roleplay, and rarely go on dungeon hunts or spend a lot of time crafting for "profit." And really, that's the thing... most casual players aren't playing for "profit," they're playing for the experience, whatever that experience is. There are those (and I'd say Stratics is largely skewed away from the casual audience) who do spend endless hours doing this or that who have more money than they'll ever need.

But to say that 12 million is such an easy sum to come by that everyone who has played for a year should have it is grossly inaccurate and a strange basis on which to view the game.

 

[Skrag]

I stopped after my 4th or 5th orc ship, it got boring. The sailing time to and from the ONLY area with pirates is beyond dull for a whole 2-3K (in a group) and a now-lame reward isn't worth it. (And this is AFTER you've resigned yourself to broken cannon ammo economics...)

In other words exactly what everyone who wasn't a raving fanboy predicted.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

In other words exactly what everyone who wasn't a raving fanboy predicted.

Exactly.

 

[Nyses]

I stopped after my 4th or 5th orc ship, it got boring. The sailing time to and from the ONLY area with pirates is beyond dull for a whole 2-3K (in a group) and a now-lame reward isn't worth it. (And this is AFTER you've resigned yourself to broken cannon ammo economics...)

In other words exactly what everyone who wasn't a raving fanboy predicted.

Well, if you repeat "It's worth the 20% storage increase alone!!" Over and over, you will eventually feel better about High Seas. I hope.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Well, if you repeat "It's worth the 20% storage increase alone!!" Over and over, you will eventually feel better about High Seas. I hope.

Well, right... and, sadly, that's probably why future boosters will need to include "Hey, buy me quick!" features like this rather than standing alone on the merit of their content.

I mean, honestly, they could have widened the scope of High Seas and had it stand alone on its own merit by simply doing a few things:

1) First and foremost, bug test the hell out of it and release it in a much better shape than it was.
2) Include things for a wider audience, such as:
- Some special floor tiles (heck, even just two sets, ala 9th Anniversary) for housing
- A true dungeon that adventurers could go to (think pirate caves beneath Bucs on a dungeon server with lots to explore)
- Other things I'm too tired to think of right now...
3) Made the overall crafting process LESS tedious and more favorable for crafters
4) Widen the scope of the questing/fighting area
5) And so on...

Yes, I understand it would have taken more development time, but not a large amount more; housing tiles are mostly an art asset, a dungeon could have been whipped together with the help of the EMs in concept (ala Khaldun) and implemented; other small things would have obviously helped...

In short, the scope should have been widened slightly to appease a larger audience. There simply isn't enough in High Seas by itself to appeal to anyone other than that small audience who was waiting for it and those who would play with it because it was new but have since lost interest.

However, on the flip side of the coin, as long as Bioware Mythic continues to offer viable "flashy" reasons for upgrading (such as the storage increase) they can put in targeted boosters AND still hit the mass audience too. But I'd strongly suggest wider scope.

I'd also suggest avoiding selling something clearly linked to the thing just sold to customers -- it's sort of like going and buying a new car and then having your car deal offer to sell you a set of brand new tires to go with it 45 days later. My question would be "Why weren't the tires part of the car in the first place?"

 

[Viquire]

Seems to me it should have been the early opt in or pre-order reward.

 

[Felonious Monk]

That's a ludicrous standpoint to take. I've been playing for 13 years, and while yes, I currently have about 21 million in "liquid assets," that's largely because I sold a character transfer token that I wasn't using for 17.5 million.

Why?

Because presently I play to roleplay, and rarely go on dungeon hunts or spend a lot of time crafting for "profit." And really, that's the thing... most casual players aren't playing for "profit," they're playing for the experience, whatever that experience is. There are those (and I'd say Stratics is largely skewed away from the casual audience) who do spend endless hours doing this or that who have more money than they'll ever need.

But to say that 12 million is such an easy sum to come by that everyone who has played for a year should have it is grossly inaccurate and a strange basis on which to view the game.

Ya...Im not big on gold either. More about what I think is fun and again not as much time to play UO........

 

[UOKaiser]

That's a ludicrous standpoint to take. I've been playing for 13 years, and while yes, I currently have about 21 million in "liquid assets," that's largely because I sold a character transfer token that I wasn't using for 17.5 million.

Why?

Because presently I play to roleplay, and rarely go on dungeon hunts or spend a lot of time crafting for "profit." And really, that's the thing... most casual players aren't playing for "profit," they're playing for the experience, whatever that experience is. There are those (and I'd say Stratics is largely skewed away from the casual audience) who do spend endless hours doing this or that who have more money than they'll ever need.

But to say that 12 million is such an easy sum to come by that everyone who has played for a year should have it is grossly inaccurate and a strange basis on which to view the game.

12 million is a easy sum to come by. We all started as newbies with less 1k to our name. Yet we still have plenty of gold. It's part of the game. It'sthe currency of the game. Anybody who has developed a character has the ability to make 12mil pretty easily doing usual playing. Only role players that are not allowed to wear certain items or have certain things in there respected community probably won't have it but thats because they limit them selves.
The weird thing some of the most wealthy player in the game are only pvp players. Even they know how to generate massive amounts of gold by just doing what they love.
Casual players these days can just casualy grab some essence to make there millions or spend some time shooting for a rare drop. The reason they would do that cause they want something that needs gold for it. 1 year worth of knowledge is more than enough to know how to get gold quick.

When I returned to the game I had only 1 mil in the bank no home and everything I aquired was gone. Because of experience gold flowed back to me like water without even spending much time in pursuit of it. Bought everything that i lost back except certain 1 of a kind items and was back in full swing in half a year. It was much harder to make 10-50k in the old days I was so surprise how easy it was to get gold in these later years.

 

[Zosimus]

Mythic Bioware is doing the same thing as they have been doing. You pay for a monthly fee then charge if you want extra stuff. Hence the gamecode store. It's P2P+WJWTEYBAM model ( Pay to play plus we want to empty your bank account more). Just a way to divert you from bugs with eye candy.

 

[Muu Bin]

Seems to me it should have been the early opt in or pre-order reward.

This.

Learn from your mistakes EA/ Mythic/ Bioware/ OSI/ whatever you call yourselves now! As mentioned above... assume the position (and thank you for it).

 

[ikaikaman]

In all cases,Manager of Terminal OnlingeGame are going to collect Money without rhyme or reason.UO is similar to that.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

12 million is a easy sum to come by...

Kaiser, I agree that a more than casual player can come up with the 12 million fairly easily. I still disagree that a casual player is easily going to come up with 12 million gold, and I would further state that incoming gold will also be spent on other things (better gear, so on and so forth).

If you hunted for 2 hours a night for 2 to 3 nights a week, you'd hardly come up with enough essence to make a few hundred thousand gold, much less a few million gold.

Could I, personally, sit down and make 12 million gold in the course of a month if I wanted to? Sure. It wouldn't be through "casual" play though. It would be through dedicated play, playing more than 5-6 hours a week.

I also concede that gold is "easier" to come by these days, but I still doubt that the casual player is going to find that gold is flying from the sky.

Of course, perhaps I'm wrong in my belief that there are still casual players in UO.

But, let's skip the whole 12 million gold theory anyway, because as stated by the Dev Team, it will take a LONG TIME to trade in for the boats. While perhaps people with lots of gold will be able to buy them immediately, I suspect we're talking about something significantly over 800,000 points, and if that's the case, we're talking about something significantly over 12 million gold too. The larger the number becomes, the less likely it is that a casual player will be able to accomplish it.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Mythic Bioware is doing the same thing as they have been doing. You pay for a monthly fee then charge if you want extra stuff. Hence the gamecode store. It's P2P+WJWTEYBAM model ( Pay to play plus we want to empty your bank account more). Just a way to divert you from bugs with eye candy.

Well, hey, I don't begrudge them trying to make extra money on certain items. Things like special dye colors, name changes, transfer tokens, hair colors, even some of the spring decor items or permanent soulstones (though I did begrudge them reusing a "one time only" preorder item again) and so forth make sense.

And the boat might make sense next year if it were an extra boat that wasn't a Britannian boat (meaning there should have been a Britannian boat to start with) that wasn't being released 45 days after the expansion that made it usable was released.

It's really sort of akin to had they released Mondain's Legacy, let you play an elf, but charged you for pointy ears; released Samurai Empire but charged you for a Bushido skill book; released Age of Shadows, but charged you for a necromancer spellbook; released Stygian Abyss, but charged you to access areas of the world that hadn't been finished (don't get any ideas!).

 

[Nyses]

......I mean, honestly, they could have widened the scope of High Seas and had it stand alone on its own merit by simply doing a few things:

1) First and foremost, bug test the hell out of it and release it in a much better shape than it was.
2) Include things for a wider audience, such as:
- Some special floor tiles (heck, even just two sets, ala 9th Anniversary) for housing
- A true dungeon that adventurers could go to (think pirate caves beneath Bucs on a dungeon server with lots to explore)
- Other things I'm too tired to think of right now...
3) Made the overall crafting process LESS tedious and more favorable for crafters
4) Widen the scope of the questing/fighting area
5) And so on...

.........In short, the scope should have been widened slightly to appease a larger audience. There simply isn't enough in High Seas by itself to appeal to anyone other than that small audience who was waiting for it.......

I agree with you completely, to be honest, I got the "booster" for the storage so I could consolidate 3 houses to, 2 houses, and close an account.

 

[Mapper]

Sounds very interesting, I'd get one if they offered a larger item count hold.

 

[Skrag]

I won't think of buying one until there's a reason to want to own a ship.

By the way, now that High Seas is basically a splattered dead husk, where is Popps to tell me about how everyone will want to farm orc ships forever? Where is JC to tell me how the terrible crafting grind somehow encourages crafting?

 

[aoLOLita]

Hope it's offered for sale in time for the holidays, will make a nice gift

I would much rather pay the money directly to UO's owner/developer than to a 3rd party online site. I consider myself a de facto shareholder, my "dividend" is that a game that i have enjoyed almost dozen years may stay afloat for another dozen...

 

[popps]

Hope it's offered for sale in time for the holidays, will make a nice gift

I would much rather pay the money directly to UO's owner/developer than to a 3rd party online site. I consider myself a de facto shareholder, my "dividend" is that a game that i have enjoyed almost dozen years may stay afloat for another dozen...

I do not have a problem in spending money to buy the new ship as I see it as supporting UO. As long as there is resources coming from it, there will be (I hope) continued support and new content added.

I do have one concern, though, nothing as been mentioned about this "purchaseable" new boat for real money, in regards to it being or not decayable.

As we know, boats whether traditional or High Seas boats decay if unfreshed.

But they do not cost real money to buy.......

I would find it extremely unfortunate if any player, after spending real money on these new boats, would have to see them decaying because not refreshed in time.

Personally, I think that "if" they are going to be purchaseable through real money they should not suffer any decay risk.

Perhaps, there could be a difference between the Library Collectible version (this one decayable because got in game, for no real money) and the one purchaseable for real money which will not be decayable, period.

This, could also work as an incentive, perhaps, to have player prefer buying the new ship with real money over getting it in game through Library Collectibles. Which could bring in more revenues for UO (which is good).

Personally, I'd prefer to spend my money and have a non-decayable ship, rather than get a free one through in-game playing that will be subject to decay....

Did the Developers consider this issue when they decided to make it an item purchaseable with real money ?

 

[Merion]

i agree with everything Radian has said.

 

[Babble]

RMT is the future of gaming, just asking a monthly fee added to it is bold and not a lot of games get away with it.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

RMT is the future of gaming, just asking a monthly fee added to it is bold and not a lot of games get away with it.

Well, to reiterate -- and just choosing your post to quote/respond to as it's last in the list presently -- I don't begrudge Bioware Mythic making extra money off of RMT.

What I begrudge them is selling something that is, essentially, a booster to the booster. It's way too soon for them to be trying to capitalize upon something they've already capitalized on.