Idea to make older areas more attractive

[Thav12]

Make virtue dungeons, or other areas that you want to re-vamp, locations where your insurance of items becomes nul and void. In return for these risks, a new reward schedule with various items can be introduced. Point system like in doom. Deeper levels, or more difficult monsters give you more points.

This would work on both facets.

It may introduce new areas to PvP in Fel. (no insurance, steep risks of loosing stuff, but maybe also cool rewards like 3.0 SoT or Orny's or something)

Gives players a reason to reexplore those areas.

Counter acts this on going cycle that newer content always has to be (a) more difficult (monster), requiring more comprehensive items, and so on.

This way you make existing area's more dangerous, but also more rewarding. Just post a sign at the entrance stating that from here on Lord British Insurance, Inc. considers your policy voided. Should be a cheap way for the Devs to reintroduce some of the old stuff and classic feeling, without upsetting any of the game mechanics.

 

[Aran]

Do you people have no ability to be creative? "Oh man take out insurance!" in every post.

 

[Thav12]

Do you people have no ability to be creative? "Oh man take out insurance!" in every post.

No, this is different. I think the insurance thing is fine. We have lived with it for ages, and i would not want it any other way. Not talking about removing insurance.

It is a way to revamp some of the legacy areas that are hardly used currently and add a component back to the game that may give people some sense of danger.

Try not to lump people together either, sometimes that makes for a short sighted argument.

 

[UOKaiser]

No, this is different. I think the insurance thing is fine. We have lived with it for ages, and i would not want it any other way. Not talking about removing insurance.

It is a way to revamp some of the legacy areas that are hardly used currently and add a component back to the game that may give people some sense of danger.

Try not to lump people together either, sometimes that makes for a short sighted argument.

Your using the wrong perspective. You looking at PVM from a PVP player point of view. Look at it with a pure PVM point of view and adjust your thoughts regarding PVM in that matter and you will come up with a more sucessful way for people to PVM.

 

[lankdogg03]

I think you're on the right track in terms of higher risk higher reward with new cycles of items, monsters, etc. However, if people knew they might lose their best stuff I think they would be likely to wear back up stuff into the dungeons.

 

[Thav12]

No, this is different. I think the insurance thing is fine. We have lived with it for ages, and i would not want it any other way. Not talking about removing insurance.

It is a way to revamp some of the legacy areas that are hardly used currently and add a component back to the game that may give people some sense of danger.

Try not to lump people together either, sometimes that makes for a short sighted argument.

Your using the wrong perspective. You looking at PVM from a PVP player point of view. Look at it with a pure PVM point of view and adjust your thoughts regarding PVM in that matter and you will come up with a more sucessful way for people to PVM.

I think you're on the right track in terms of higher risk higher reward with new cycles of items, monsters, etc. However, if people knew they might lose their best stuff I think they would be likely to wear back up stuff into the dungeons.

I am actually approaching this from a pvm perspective. I have been playing mostly PvM and some PvP. The cycle of "beat down monster with 20.000 hp" with "best gear of the day" is getting old. I would love to go down to level 4 shame and beat on some ele's and such, for some good loot, even while risking my uninsured stuff. If i have to bring my not so good cheap suit, all the better. It nearly forces me to leave my 6 mod per piece imbued sampire super suit behind and may make some other templates better equipped. I think this would work like a dream. truly do not see any draw backs, not from a PvM, nor a PvP perspective.

 

[Fat Midnight]

Idea to make older areas more attractive

The dev team is already working a fix for this.

Haven't you seen the pictures of the stills?

Alcohol makes the world around me much more attractive.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

I disagree that removing insurance makes higher end PvM more attractive. In fact I would argue that the reverse is the case.

Basically the logic is this:

If I have the ability to bless or insure my best gear, then I can use my best gear which allows me to push the limit of what I can fight in PvM.

If I DON'T have the ability to bless/insure gear, then I will PvM in such a way that I can maximize my return and minimize the risk (aka farming).

Insurance still gives a penalty for death (gold loss) but allows people to actually USE Their gear instead of keeping it stashed away in a bank or only be useful as "decorative armor".

The ability to use better gear without fear that the smallest mishap will cause them to lose it all leads more people to higher levels of actual challenge because, yes, they are less afraid of dying and thus are willing to take a bigger risk.

Getting people into unused areas requires CONTENT not rule changes. People need a REASON to go into whatever dungeon. The virtue system shouldn't be a set of grindable tasks, but should be quest based with quests leading players into the various appropriate dungeons for the appropriate reasons. Existing rewards systems (like the Anti-Virtue dungeon drops) need to be shuffled every so often to remain fresh. Spawn should be more dynamic in areas, changing conditions depending on things like in-game time, player activity (or lack thereof), or events within the game.

Also more rewards should be consumable (or resources). As it is, new rewards that are either decorative or gear will be popular for the first few months of release, but as the market saturates, the activity becomes stale and less people remain involved. Consumable/resource rewards retain a higher level of interest and while they do "calm down", they don't outright "die" in terms of participation. Best example would be the ant mounds with the bags of sending and powder quests. They've been ingame for MANY years now and are still actively completed on a regular basis because the rewards are both useful and consumable/limited.

Content and useful/consumable rewards will go further in revitalizing an area than "removing insurance" ever will.

 

[aarons6]

this would make those areas less used.. at least now you can train on the ettins or get leather from the lizzard men..

what happens if you die and due to some bug you cant get to your corpse?? its happened many many many times.. no insurance means you lose everything.. i for one do not want to have to go through re equipping my char every time due to some bugs.

most high end suits are next to impossible to rebuild.. i for one spent about 20k of leather and several hours on my sleeves to get ONE piece that had the right spread of resists..
i would be ok for the removal of insurance if they took the randomness off crafting and just made armor all even.. like if you have 6 pieces of barbed leather armor you are automatically all 70s, then i could just pop out some pieces imbue them up and be on my way.

 

[Tanivar]

Having to wear uninsured non-super-uber armor would restore some challenge to the older dungeons. You would have to use some skill and think about tactics instead of just walking into a dungeon in near-god-mode armor and swatting every monster as easily as swatting a fly stuck on flypaper.

I like the idea. I'd stuff my characters imbued-to-the-max armor and weapons into his stash at the Tower and put him in some GM armor with a few added abilities and go hunt the unisured areas. It would add some real risk to hunting without having to go risk rewarding a gank squad in Fel.

An alternative would be having some monsters do real damage to gear because of how big they are and how hard they hit. Say every 10 points of durability damage an item takes, takes off one point of maximum durability as well. If it hits zero durability it breaks completely. Otherwise PoF can restore points to it (unless it's imbued). This last part might make it tolerable to the Uber-gear Group who would be the main opponets to such ideas.

 

[aarons6]

Having to wear uninsured non-super-uber armor would restore some challenge to the older dungeons. You would have to use some skill and think about tactics instead of just walking into a dungeon in near-god-mode armor and swatting every monster as easily as swatting a fly stuck on flypaper.

I like the idea. I'd stuff my characters imbued-to-the-max armor and weapons into his stash at the Tower and put him in some GM armor with a few added abilities and go hunt the unisured areas. It would add some real risk to hunting without having to go risk rewarding a gank squad in Fel.

An alternative would be having some monsters do real damage to gear because of how big they are and how hard they hit. Say every 10 points of durability damage an item takes, takes off one point of maximum durability as well. If it hits zero durability it breaks completely. Otherwise PoF can restore points to it (unless it's imbued). This last part might make it tolerable to the Uber-gear Group who would be the main opponets to such ideas.

if you want a challenge uninsure your stuff and go play around. i like insurance.

 

[LordDrago]

Having to wear uninsured non-super-uber armor would restore some challenge to the older dungeons. You would have to use some skill and think about tactics instead of just walking into a dungeon in near-god-mode armor and swatting every monster as easily as swatting a fly stuck on flypaper.

I like the idea. I'd stuff my characters imbued-to-the-max armor and weapons into his stash at the Tower and put him in some GM armor with a few added abilities and go hunt the unisured areas. It would add some real risk to hunting without having to go risk rewarding a gank squad in Fel.

An alternative would be having some monsters do real damage to gear because of how big they are and how hard they hit. Say every 10 points of durability damage an item takes, takes off one point of maximum durability as well. If it hits zero durability it breaks completely. Otherwise PoF can restore points to it (unless it's imbued). This last part might make it tolerable to the Uber-gear Group who would be the main opponets to such ideas.

?

You are looking for some coding in the game to allow you to turn off insurance and wear GM armor?

Perhaps you have a bugged character. I find it quite easy to wear basic armor, and can turn on and off my insurance whenever I want.

UO gives players the ability to play any number of ways. You want the challenge of no insurance? turn it off.

You want a penalty for dying? Wait 20 minutes after death to put your jewlry back on.

you want to PvP in trammel? Start a couple of guilds and go to war.


Are their some limitations? yes. But at least take the 1st step.

 

[Tina Small]

Make virtue dungeons, or other areas that you want to re-vamp, locations where your insurance of items becomes nul and void. In return for these risks, a new reward schedule with various items can be introduced. Point system like in doom. Deeper levels, or more difficult monsters give you more points.

This would work on both facets.

It may introduce new areas to PvP in Fel. (no insurance, steep risks of loosing stuff, but maybe also cool rewards like 3.0 SoT or Orny's or something)

Gives players a reason to reexplore those areas.

Counter acts this on going cycle that newer content always has to be (a) more difficult (monster), requiring more comprehensive items, and so on.

This way you make existing area's more dangerous, but also more rewarding. Just post a sign at the entrance stating that from here on Lord British Insurance, Inc. considers your policy voided. Should be a cheap way for the Devs to reintroduce some of the old stuff and classic feeling, without upsetting any of the game mechanics.

On shards other than Siege and Mugen, all someone would have to do to get around the challenge would be spend $5 or so at the game code store to buy a blessed Undertaker's Staff. With the staff in their pack, they wouldn't have to worry about not having any insurance on their gear.

Ignoring the staff issue, though, how would you implement something like this on Siege and Mugen where there is already no insurance, the whole shard is a PvPer's playground, and there's also no way out of dungeons other than to walk out? It's already plenty risky! Plus, there's only one set of those old dungeons on Siege and a lot of their space is already taken up with champ spawn areas.

 

[G.v.P]

So I heard Test Center cloning is coming in soon. And this thread is about making older areas more attractive.

Bang. Cal Crowner clones.

You're welcome, UO.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Make virtue dungeons, or other areas that you want to re-vamp, locations where your insurance of items becomes nul and void. In return for these risks, a new reward schedule with various items can be introduced. Point system like in doom. Deeper levels, or more difficult monsters give you more points.

This would work on both facets.

It may introduce new areas to PvP in Fel. (no insurance, steep risks of loosing stuff, but maybe also cool rewards like 3.0 SoT or Orny's or something)

Gives players a reason to reexplore those areas.

Counter acts this on going cycle that newer content always has to be (a) more difficult (monster), requiring more comprehensive items, and so on.

This way you make existing area's more dangerous, but also more rewarding. Just post a sign at the entrance stating that from here on Lord British Insurance, Inc. considers your policy voided. Should be a cheap way for the Devs to reintroduce some of the old stuff and classic feeling, without upsetting any of the game mechanics.

I agree with some of your ideas. Im not even going to read more posts. Very few people want risk in this game. They dont want to be looted. They dont want to have bone decay. They must have insurance. And so on.....


Even if you made dungeons blocked magically for recalling in. You had to travel from level one down fighting intelligent hoards. You could find cool items... but if you died you had to be rezzed there or leave and come back...

Oh my goodness this board would light up with "FOUL".

Bottom line... we want all the good stuff with no risk. PECK PECK PECK... where is our reward.

There is no exploration in UO anymore. Only recall or quest or drop net.

I heard soon all new stuff is just going to be given as gifts. You wont even have to fight anything.

Woohoo.

 

[Tanivar]

I find the game is getting more than a bit boring. The nice thick, cuddly, warm, and protective layers of security blankets we all have to wrap up safe & secure in, particularly the super-uber gear that requires the Devs to give monsters 50,000 hp and the ability to do 100 dps so that they take more than a few minutes to kill for some solo players has gotten really tiresome.

Why I favored the idea of a pre-AoS or even a PK infested Classic Shard where things didn't have to be so jury-rigged to allow for those few with the $200 million gold ultra-super-duper-uber gear with over-the-top bonus numbers. To bad that idea is now Officially Dead & Buried.

I suspect I'll be taking a break this summer with the others who do that each year. Shut my accounts down in June and probably wander back in September. Playing this game has gotten to the point it's just a way to pass the time. About as interesting and exciting as playing Solitare.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

I find the game is getting more than a bit boring. The nice thick, cuddly, warm, and protective layers of security blankets we all have to wrap up safe & secure in, particularly the super-uber gear that requires the Devs to give monsters 50,000 hp and the ability to do 100 dps so that they take more than a few minutes to kill for some solo players has gotten really tiresome.

Why I favored the idea of a pre-AoS or even a PK infested Classic Shard where things didn't have to be so jury-rigged to allow for those few with the $200 million gold ultra-super-duper-uber gear with over-the-top bonus numbers. To bad that idea is now Officially Dead & Buried.

I suspect I'll be taking a break this summer with the others who do that each year. Shut my accounts down in June and probably wander back in September. Playing this game has gotten to the point it's just a way to pass the time. About as interesting and exciting as playing Solitare.

Good post. It is actually like solitar. I sign on kill 20 minutes and go away.

The game is boring. Nothing to explore, no randomization, I have gold and can buy all the new stuff.

So whats left... yeah yeah. Ive tried it.

I want my characture to walk and explore, fight, die, reap rewards, and return with loot... I need to figure out what is what with.

Is that so much to ask?

Difficult dungeons are a good start. Damn it a DUNGEON DEVS if we go in, nothing should be blessed or insured. Freaking go in with GM stuff and imbued weapon. YOU DIE YOU DIE and maybe lose crap.


ARGH. There are only of few of us left, I think.

 

[aarons6]

I agree with some of your ideas. Im not even going to read more posts. Very few people want risk in this game. They dont want to be looted. They dont want to have bone decay. They must have insurance. And so on.....


Even if you made dungeons blocked magically for recalling in. You had to travel from level one down fighting intelligent hoards. You could find cool items... but if you died you had to be rezzed there or leave and come back...

Oh my goodness this board would light up with "FOUL".

Bottom line... we want all the good stuff with no risk. PECK PECK PECK... where is our reward.

There is no exploration in UO anymore. Only recall or quest or drop net.

I heard soon all new stuff is just going to be given as gifts. You wont even have to fight anything.

Woohoo.

what you speak of they did.. look at the dungeon khaldun.
they made it so hard to do that nobody goes there.
its in fel t2a, so you gotta walk there and when you die, you cant get ressed inside, you have to backrack all the way out. on top of all this i dont even think anything in there drops any kind of special loot..
so there you go.. if you want a challenge turn off insurance and go run around khaldun.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

what you speak of they did.. look at the dungeon khaldun.
they made it so hard to do that nobody goes there.
its in fel t2a, so you gotta walk there and when you die, you cant get ressed inside, you have to backrack all the way out. on top of all this i dont even think anything in there drops any kind of special loot..
so there you go.. if you want a challenge turn off insurance and go run around khaldun.

Typical, answer. Very short sighted if you think walking around without insurance is the solution.

Advance dungeons, new rewards, mysteries, and death. Spare me the dribble...

Oh wait... Go Play Siege. Now that is out of the way.

Your right... no special loot in khaldun or reason to go.

I do give away million gold checks to players... that is like losing your crap but I have fun doing it.

Try to focus your energy on REASON to go and see what you come up with. That is what the game is missing.

 

[Tina Small]

The game is boring. Nothing to explore, no randomization, I have gold and can buy all the new stuff.

So whats left... yeah yeah. Ive tried it.

I want my characture to walk and explore, fight, die, reap rewards, and return with loot... I need to figure out what is what with.

Is that so much to ask?

Difficult dungeons are a good start. Damn it a DUNGEON DEVS if we go in, nothing should be blessed or insured. Freaking go in with GM stuff and imbued weapon. YOU DIE YOU DIE and maybe lose crap.


ARGH. There are only of few of us left, I think.

Raven, have you tried Siege? If you make a character without magery, you will be doing exactly what you stated you want to do: Walk. Explore. Fight. Die. Reap rewards. Return with loot. And dungeons will be difficult. Heck, you'll do all that with a mage too. Just might not walk nearly as often. Or, then again, if you die a lot, yes you might be doing a lot of walking! Hehe.

Why not give it a try? Do it from scratch and resist the urge to have a broker trade you Siege gold for your Atlantic gold. If you want to make a merchant, there are several locations all around Siege now that I'm sure would love to have another shop nearby to help draw in customers. You will find people online around the clock too.

And if you decide to join the NEW guild, you will receive some great assistance to get you started (e.g., some 105/110 power scrolls; a suit appropriate to your character type (yes that means LRC); appropriate spellbook(s); starter weapons if needed; runebook; tools for crafters; and maybe some other nifty stuff to help you, if needed). The rules for NEW are simple and common sense and the community on Siege donate all kinds of things to it to be given to new players to get them on their feet. I've been playing there now for almost two months and loving every minute of it, enjoying some role playing and making great progress building some characters. The people there are absolutely awesome.

 

[Tina Small]

Sorry for the additional post, but I wanted to tell Raven and anyone else who may be thinking along the same lines, that I'm sure something can be arranged if you are craving random, unexpected encounters. Even for your merchant character!

*Remembers with a smile a funny conversation early this morning between Raptor and Czarina after Raptor managed to drape Czarina over a fence in her Magincia home. (All he really wanted was a funny screen shot. The conversation they both had over the incident was fun to listen to and no, there was no rancor or bitterness from Czarina and no gloating by Raptor).*

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Raven, have you tried Siege? If you make a character without magery, you will be doing exactly what you stated you want to do: Walk. Explore. Fight. Die. Reap rewards. Return with loot. And dungeons will be difficult. Heck, you'll do all that with a mage too. Just might not walk nearly as often. Or, then again, if you die a lot, yes you might be doing a lot of walking! Hehe.

Why not give it a try? Do it from scratch and resist the urge to have a broker trade you Siege gold for your Atlantic gold. If you want to make a merchant, there are several locations all around Siege now that I'm sure would love to have another shop nearby to help draw in customers. You will find people online around the clock too.

And if you decide to join the NEW guild, you will receive some great assistance to get you started (e.g., some 105/110 power scrolls; a suit appropriate to your character type (yes that means LRC); appropriate spellbook(s); starter weapons if needed; runebook; tools for crafters; and maybe some other nifty stuff to help you, if needed). The rules for NEW are simple and common sense and the community on Siege donate all kinds of things to it to be given to new players to get them on their feet. I've been playing there now for almost two months and loving every minute of it, enjoying some role playing and making great progress building some characters. The people there are absolutely awesome.

Tina I have done it. Your ideas are good but they are our ideas to make a lacking game better.

Ive started in a dungeon bare and fought my way up in gear.

Ive have a player on siege. Lots of fun running around with few people. When I did find people I found, I wanted a small home. Now I have to give up a home to get one? I don't want to do that. Again forced to choose a house based on not having something on Atlantic.

The problem is I have to start over to get anything out of the game now. Sure I could wipe my gold. And start over. I did that on Sonoma and found out how great the players were. I then tried it at pacific.

I ran into a jerk on origin, you helped me out. That was better then the game.

The bottom line... we vets and players that have played a couple of years now, constantly have to find ways to seek new random adventure.

What I am saying now is it is the DEVS responsiblity to create a better game and take our suggestions into play... beyond silly colors and lame quests and total body condoms for protections of all ills.

The DEVS did a great JOB with the SA dungeon, then they catered to us whiners and gave us a bizzillion ways to get the ingredients for imbuing.

Think about it.

Much of what I tried was from your suggestions way back. I tried them. Now I want the game to progress and stop forcing me to digress to find challenges.

The DEVS are responsible for making a sandbox game and sandbox adventure. Not 50000000 hit points, quests, rinse and repeats.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Sorry for the additional post, but I wanted to tell Raven and anyone else who may be thinking along the same lines, that I'm sure something can be arranged if you are craving random, unexpected encounters. Even for your merchant character!

*Remembers with a smile a funny conversation early this morning between Raptor and Czarina after Raptor managed to drape Czarina over a fence in her Magincia home. (All he really wanted was a funny screen shot. The conversation they both had over the incident was fun to listen to and no, there was no rancor or bitterness from Czarina and no gloating by Raptor).*

I hope, but not by us and EMS. Game design is needed. Players and EMs do a pretty good job. But I also clock in the game at time when I have time and not when EM events and player run stuff is happening.

I think the DEVS do fine work. I am critical of the game not them. The game needs change.

 

[Thav12]

what you speak of they did.. look at the dungeon khaldun.
they made it so hard to do that nobody goes there.
its in fel t2a, so you gotta walk there and when you die, you cant get ressed inside, you have to backrack all the way out. on top of all this i dont even think anything in there drops any kind of special loot..
so there you go.. if you want a challenge turn off insurance and go run around khaldun.

So add a better reward... I don't go to Khaldun now because I get dog doodoo for my risk-taking. So, back to beating up on dreadhorn while reading a book on the couch (i keep an eye on the monitor, so not unattended ;-) ) and see what reward I get 10 minutes later... Point is risk vs reward in selected areas may reintroduce elements to the game that some may like. We could still agree that it is also fun to go beat up on a new monster in our pimped out suits... I like that too...