How to Ruin an MMORPG by Origin Systems Inc., Co-authored by EA

[FrejaSP]

Prior to the recent influx of [young] players due to the latest quest, I saw [young] players just about every day. We've been hearing "The Sky Is Falling" since the beginning of UO.

Yes you see young players but do you also see them grow up?

Now is no different than then. Hell, if I'd played UO prior to there being an option for consentual PvP, I would have been one of the ones that quit before Tram came about.

Don't be to sure of that, I could say, had I not started in 1997 with dangers on each corner and lots of reds wanting to interact with me, I fear I would had ended up as a trammy, to scared to set my feets i Felucca and would never had been choosing Siege as my home.

I joined the game because my som showed me, that I could make a char do crafting stuff. He sure not expected me to end up as red and I did not know about PvP. I did however read the manuel and accepted reds and thieves as a part of the game, just like monsters.

I'm so happy I did not grow up in Trammel and miss, what for me had been the best part of the game.

 

[Traveller]

As players didn't leave in droves at any given point other than the period prior to the implementation of Trammel, I'd have to say UO Devs have done something right. I've never played, nor even looked at SWG, so can't say anything about it.

I suppose that entire guilds of beta-veterans leaving en-masse two months after AoS release doesn't qualify as "players leaving in droves" in your considerate opinion.

Face it connor, the fact stand that the game was slowly declining before AoS, peaked with the AoS release and started declining since two months after AoS release and never stopped going down.

I don't know if renaissance was good or bad for the game (and nobody really does despite the fact that everybody here shoves his own opinion as facts), but having been here before and after AoS it seems pretty straightforward to me that AoS killed most of the depth this game had.

Just a small example, but very representative. Do you know JoAT "introduced" with mondain legacy? Before AoS we used to have it on any character, with a much better implementation (i.e. the effective skill boost to skill values was connected to your stats, and would slowly decrease with an increase in the real skill). Then after two years EA had the nerve to ask us to pay for an "expansion" that would reintroduce a two years old dynamic, with a much worse implementation than we originally had.

Anyway, you are having fun with the game as it is? Good, go for it, and pay for it. Just don't expect me and many other people who paid for it to continue to pay to support your fun.

 

[Salty Pete]

As players didn't leave in droves at any given point other than the period prior to the implementation of Trammel, I'd have to say UO Devs have done something right. I've never played, nor even looked at SWG, so can't say anything about it.

Players left in droves with AoS. Most of the folks I played with on Sonoma for instance left at the same time I did. A few stayed, the kind of people who enjoyed collecting and casual PvM mainly. When I tried a free trial in 2005 I was horrified to find a shard filled with scripters and other play for $ pay types instead of the friendly supportive event creating community that existed prior to when I left. There were pockets of hold outs, but the majority had left.

One thing has helped bring a few of us back to UO though... The popularity of WoW. New MMOs are almost always built to that level treadmill, rigid class, Diablo 2 style game.

It would be great if the Devs started rebuilding some of UO's character diversity instead of thinking level/class/item.

 

[Connor_Graham]

Don't be to sure of that, I could say, had I not started in 1997 with dangers on each corner and lots of reds wanting to interact with me, I fear I would had ended up as a trammy, to scared to set my feets i Felucca and would never had been choosing Siege as my home.

I can be sure of it. I've tried UO's PvP and found that I didn't like it at all. If I'd played when there was no option NOT to participate in it, then I wouldn't have stayed with the game.

 

[Landicine]

Losing depth of a game cannot be simplified in UO on the showing of Numbers.

But the game certainly eliminated or simplified playstyles.
While the pvp and pve skills improved the basic of pvp/pve stays the same.
Thiwving, crafting, harvesting all underwent major changes and many resulted in loss of ingame depth.
Yes, it got harder to get a runic kit, to steal a level 10 rare, to find ore, but all that changes don't mean more depth as hard is not depth.

Uo should consider implementing systems again which build upon another and enhance or add playstyles again.

You may be right on stealing. Doom stealables is hardly that impressive.

You are wrong on crafting. I had tailoring for years before AoS (smithing came with AoS, but I know smiths). Originally, there was no runics. There were no special hides, wood, or ingots. There wasn't even exceptional. The best a smith or tailor could make what a weapon as good as one from an NPC vendor. With silver vanguishing accurate indestructible swords, no one really wanted to buy leather armor. I used it to reequip after I died to a pk. Crafting was basically a way to turn iron ingots and hides into quick cash (by quick, I mean you made a lot of stuff and sold it to a provisioner 5 items at a time for a few hundred gold maybe). Crafting has gained a lot of depth over the years with recipes, runics, special materials, craftable artifacts, arms lore bonus, enhancement, etc.

Harvesting used to be a way to gain strength (when gaining strength was a lot harder than it is now). My first character over 10 years ago hit the side of a mountain for strength gains and a few iron ingots. Just iron. No special colors. I may not like the randomized ore spots since it 1) favors scripters and 2) doesn't encourage miners to explore mine, but I don't think it is a matter of depth.

As for PvP and PvM templates, that is a problem with balance. People tend to pick the most powerful templates, and this tends to result in pretty homogenous group. Some of my less used alts are strange templates, and they can't really do as much as others. This has nothing to do with depth, but more to do with balancing power between the skills. Look at the utility of the various skills. Magery is a million times more useful than Forensic evaluation. Chivalry is better than Taste ID. Never in UO's history did people GM Taste ID or Forensic Evaluation for serious use (mostly people GMed it in case it ever became good).

 

[Mulch]

You are going a bit too far back. I meant pre AOS when coloured leather already existed and coloured ingots.
The developers enhanced crafting over the years bit by bit, but with AOS they took things in a totally new direction.
I would have preferred if crafters could have specialized in their crafting instead of relying on BODS and RNG to craft.

It must be possible to balance skillbased games as Guild wars seems to do it (though I have not really tried it yet), just EA never really tried it.

 

[Limlight]

1. I loved/love this game.

2. Trammel was actually good for UO. AOS was good for UO.
Insurance killed UO.

If no insurance existed and if you could still loot bodies went they went to bones then the game might have more flavor.

Who doesnt remember waiting for that Elite dude in Deciet to die to Lichs with his Silver Vanq...hoping he wouldnt get back in time for his body?

 

[Llewen]

I appreciate the overwrought, dramatic, pseudo-intellectual eloquence with which you delivered the now-standard "Trammel Ruined UO" argument that we've heard, literally, thousands of times before from dozens of different posters.

The sad thing is that I'm so tired of refuting it that it's getting tempting to just let it win.

The reality is that "community" was a scarce and dangerous thing before Felucca. What RP existed and what player-run towns existed were under constant assault by vastly superior numbers.

Anti-PKs faced as much resentment as gratitude from the populace ("you're just making it worse!!" was a common, sad mantra).

*shrugs* Deny it if you want....On the boards, there's more of you than there are of me...Of course, in the actual game, paying subscriptions, you are a distinct minority.

All I can really do is hope that Mythic looks a subscriptions, and not boards.

These arguments have a lot less to do with reality than with romance.

-Galen's player

Well said. I was here in 97, I remember the game back then. It was great fun, but it was also incredibly frustrating. It did have something special, because it was dangerous and unpredictable, but the thing that was most special about it was that it was the first of it's kind, and utterly unique.

For most of us gamers UO was our "first time" mmorpg, and we will never ever have an experience like that again. You could revert UO completely to the way it was back then, and you would soon discover how much better the game is now than it was then, and it would never get back that certain special something that it had back then, because it was the first of it's kind.

As a pure game goes, UO is a much more interesting, varied, and challenging game than it was back then. I still think that UO is the best MMORPG ever created, when it comes to depth of game play, and diversity of every kind.

I don't think UO is dying, but I do think it could be doing better than it is currently doing, and here are what I think could be improved on, in terms of increasing the client base, and none of them have to do with going back to a pre-Renaissance, or pre-AoS world order.

1. Clean up the cheating. Either implement Punk Buster, or something similar to it and clean the game up. It is a complete mess with regard to cheating right now and has been for a very long time.

2. Polish the KR client and get it up to production quality. The KR client would be a good client, if it was working properly. It is decent as it stands, but it needs some fixing. The KR client is essential to attracting new players. New players will want to play on a modern client, and the KR client is definitely the way to go for new players.

3. Make the Stygian Abyss expansion release a well planned commercial assault. Put a product on the shelves to be sold in game stores, and do some serious advertising. I'm not talking multi-million dollar advertising slots during the Super Bowl, but some well thought out advertising on gaming websites, and in gaming magazines.

Ultima Online is a good game, and I like the current development team. I think that UO will be around for a long time to come, and could continue to do very well for a long time to come, if what I have listed happens. I should also say that I think all of those three things are going to be done, although I am somewhat pessimistic about 1, I'm just about certain that 2 and 3 are already in the works.

 

[Esmeralda]

@the OP

It´s so sad.. but true!
Altho what additionally made me love uo were the events cause they were held by real persons (aka. event moderators).

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

1. I loved/love this game.

2. Trammel was actually good for UO. AOS was good for UO.
Insurance killed UO.

If no insurance existed and if you could still loot bodies went they went to bones then the game might have more flavor.

Who doesnt remember waiting for that Elite dude in Deciet to die to Lichs with his Silver Vanq...hoping he wouldnt get back in time for his body?

Exactly.
Everyone argues do you want to lose all your stuff?
YES.
All my stuff on my body.
NOT THE STUFF in my house.
NOT THE STUFF on my vendors.
NOT THE STUFF in my bank box.

I have gold. Ill buy more.

I want to potentially lose the stuff on my corpse when I am killed.
Okay. Sure give me reason. Im not going to go to fel and just get killed. Give me a land worth exploring with random rewards and random monsters and stuff. Ill go. Dressed in my bronze runic hammer suit. With a basic weapon.

I kills me that people think this is bad. Bad to die and lose out.

Yes, I want Fel, Trammel, Ilsh and Malas. As is.
Different ways to potentially lose my stuff.

REMEMBER you STILL can lose your stuff that nots insured, in any land.

Last week going to get poison sacs, I got killed. With my blacksmith. 7 deaths later. Still couldnt get to my body. To weak. My body boned.

I logged out. Well I had to wait for my characture to time out before I could bring in my mage to clear the area.

POINT. DIED. BODY DECAYED. Was in minutes of losing my corpse. But I got it back.

I hope to GAME GOD that the DEVS bring back looting, killing, and other stuff I wrote about in other posts. Keep the lands as is. Create the lawless land.

PvP will still occur.
PvM will still occur.
Just in that land it will be different.

 

[FrejaSP]

*Hit Connor_Graham with a Troll Slayer*

 

[Connor_Graham]

*Hit Connor_Graham with a Troll Slayer*

Since I'm not the one trolling, it has no affect on me. Now if you were to use it on the right person, then it would work on them.

 

[Landicine]

You are going a bit too far back. I meant pre AOS when coloured leather already existed and coloured ingots.
The developers enhanced crafting over the years bit by bit, but with AOS they took things in a totally new direction.
I would have preferred if crafters could have specialized in their crafting instead of relying on BODS and RNG to craft.

It must be possible to balance skillbased games as Guild wars seems to do it (though I have not really tried it yet), just EA never really tried it.

I think going all the way back is important. People talk about the good old days when for some of us, they are talking about the decent middling days. Originally, special ingots didn't add bonus to armor, so I could use regular metal exceptional or exceptional valorite and get the same protection. My favorite set was actually a mix of regular chain and shadow iron.

My crafters are pretty specialized these days. A lot more than in days back. My original character was a warrior with tailoring, used to run into a dungeon in a goat helm, death robe, and practice sword, and kill mongbats to make better armor. Then I would either run the meat back to the butchers or get pked and start the process over. Every dungeon run where you didn't say OoOooo, you felt like king of the world.

Runics also existed before AoS. They just made the same bloody weapon each time. They would always add the same mods to the sword and always required use of the same metal the runic was. At the time, they were the best weapons. Powerscrolls and these strong runic weapons where the first real "items" that were needed for serious competitive play. I think it is amusing that powerscrolls which are basically expensive permanent items are usually ignored when people complain about items.

I enjoy crafting. I loot a lot of armor and weapons I don't need to play around with enhancement. I think with magic weapons and armor, there would either have to be an item like runics or a skill involved with adding magic to items or rare resources. I don't like rare resources since they mean that crafters need combat characters to help them collect them. A skill would probably mean a lot more items which would hurt crafters (spellbooks from inscription require no special materials or runics and very few of them sell for more than 1k, maybe 5k if it has all 64 spells).