Is UO too complicated?

[Velvathos]

Ok, so I am kind of comparing UO and WoW.... Both games are entirely different, UO being a Sandbox (kind of) and WoW being a Theme Park. There are two main categories in the MMORPG genre which are often referred to as “Theme Park” and “Sandbox” respectively.

The overwhelming majority of MMORPG’s today belong to the Theme Park category. A Theme Park is often carefully planned and can deliver some very unique attractions. On the other hand, the attractions usually require you to be of a certain age or length to ride them, you have to stand in line, and none or minimal interaction is needed from your part. Like a real theme park it always looks the same and chances are you grow tired of the rides after 20 times or so, unless the theme park creates new exiting rides to keep the park entertaining.

In a Sandbox game you are able to create your own rides, and you interact with other players most of the time instead of NPCs. Every time you play will be a unique experience as the player interactions determine the outcome, and the world changes and reacts dynamically to their actions. This type of game typically lasts longer, but requires more involvement by the players. (Classic UO) Now and days everyone does the same thing, over, and over again, they don't stop..

So where UO went wrong was making the game too complicated, where as in World of Warcraft, you have a nice auction system, no item randomness, items aren't difficult, they increase your stats and gives you more armor, about it, and the game is just easier to play and get around.. UO has something that WoW does not, especially on Siege Perilous, you don't have any player restrictions that don't make sense, and that is what player freedom is all about.. UO however, is too difficult for the casual gamer, it takes a VERY long time to get things you need, people shouldn't have to go to a bank and spam or look on thousands of NPC's to get an item you need or want, add in an auction system instead.. This is an example of where UO went wrong..

/discuss

 

[meridus]

*smile. You think UO has a steep learning curve? You should try EVE. I don't believe UO is too complicated. However, with the age of the game, there are many, many, different elements. Some of which are almost forgotten, or difficult to find information about.

I think all this adds to the depth. You can keep it simple, or you can dig deeper, and find the unusual stuff. I started online gaming with UO, so I will always prefer the sand box style of play.

Cheers.

 

[MalagAste]

I don't think it's that complicated..... though I do think it would certainly help matters if they had a help booklet...... many other games have them.... and another thing I think it's overly click happy...... each thing requires WAY more clicks than it needs to.

 

[Redxpanda]

Yes! This game has gotten way too complicated . It's way to difficult to just pick up and play unless you have previous experience. Even returning to the game takes some training.

This is the reason why games like WoW has so many subscribers. You can pick up and play that game with ease and even leave and come back to the same thing. With this game, you leave for a lil while and you are completely lost and way behind.

 

[RenaLynne]

Someone that doesnt have extensive time (at least to start out with) I think would quickly feel in over their head. It definately takes awhile to get to the point where you have nice "stuff" and money in da bank. When I started I had a lot of time to play, so farther I got in the game more i was more into it. Casual player just starting out, i.e. few hours a week, I could see them giving up in short time.
Both styles of game appeal to me. UO because its something you can always come back to once youve conquered other games. Theme park style, btw aptly named, are fun when youre busy in life and cant devote a lot of time and effort into playing.

 

[dielock]

not complicated at all. It just takes time to learn everything in this game.

 

[Lady-Tor]

I dont think its complicated. Theres just a HUGE amount of choice.

 

[Pickaxe Pete]

I don't find basic gameplay any more complicated than competitors, but I have not tried WoW.

The difference is, with UO, there are a lot of things to do if one pokes deeper.

Basic gameplay is going out and killing harder and harder mobs 'till one has gm skills and a couple hundred thousand gold. I'm quite confident anyone of average intelligence could manage it without a guidebook -- if they are motivated at all, that is.

On the other side of this coin, we have people like JC who post threads complaining that there is nothing left to do. So one has to please a very wide array of people to stay as successful as possible. From diaper to jaded old people.

 

[SDragor]

As far as I know, UO is the most complex MMORPG on the market. To my opinion, the complexity of UO is the reason why this game is still on the market and keeps players attracted for 10 or more years. Compared to UO, WoW seems flat and boring (considering the things you can do in game).

That may be the reason why WoW is so successful. Nice eye candy, and every idiot can play it without problems. All he has to understand is, how to level his character. Also, the most successful movies in the cinemas are Hollywood-Blockbusters with nice special effects and no real story behind it.

But look at the long-term effects: Attractions like these are exciting for a limited amount of time. When their time is over, they soon will be forgotten and stale. But the real quality movies, the classics, they will be there forever. People will still remember and talk about it decades later.

That's how it is with UO. The game engine is antiquated crap, but still 100,000 players are living in this MMORPG. Many of them since the beginning, 10 years ago.

If EA would give UO a modern engine and decent graphics, this game would rock the market. No other game can attract players for such a long time.

Having a "complicated" (I rather call it complex) game is no problem, though. It is up to each player, how deep he's gonna dig into the game and find out or learn things. Even with little knowledge about UO's depth you can have loads of fun in this game. New players will be thrilled by New Haven quests, Britannia's places of interest and the old dungeon long enough. They have time to figure out how the game works, learn, improve, and go for the difficult stuff later. No other game offers this bandwith of playing options.

 

[THP]

UO can be whatever u want it to be...u can play very simply or u can play very complicated...

Thats the beauty of UO ...theres no set format...u can do basically whatever u want to do..be it fishing for a few hours ..or a npc quest...of mining and making ingots to sell...etc etc ..really its endless...

 

[GAMBIT35]

ok, this must be the weekly "let's pat ourselves on the back and WoW sucks post"

 

[ElRay]

ok, this must be the weekly "let's pat ourselves on the back and WoW sucks post"

*pats Gambit on the back*....stands up on box and exclaims" WoW sux!!! "

"but Age of Conan fkn rox sox!!" gets down off box

 

[Killian]

Like one other poster here, I prefer the term "complex" for UO.

This game almost has the ability to be able to do what ever you want. I mean, I'm a 6 year vet, and just last night, I was out mining, then instead of the usual droping the ingots off at home, I went to Minoc, and sold them to a npc. Felt like was actually working for the NPC smith when I did that, and was actually reminding me of when I was new to UO, I would run around and do all sorts of little things like that and role play in my own little way.. well that and trying to not be killed by the spawn around some of the mines.. I remember some epic battles I had with my Mule with Gargoyles back in the day.... MAN.. was fun... and still today.. my mule can't protect himself so I have to be pretty careful of whom I pick fights with..

UO is hard.. to start out in.. specially when theres all these vets running around with all the good gear and selling stuff thats almost insanely priced for a new player to even think about getting.. They are out getting little gold off monsters or how ever they are, and they see prices of 1.5mil or more.. *yikes* that can be a scary thought.

But those who pluck away at UO will end up loving it's diverse playing options and ability to be what ever you wish to be...

 

[Lord Richard]

Ya see, this is where I'm at...UO offers so much that I haven't had to go to any other game since I started playing it.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

"Ok, so I am kind of comparing UO and WoW"

I don't know why people do. I don't do anything in UO that has anything to do with WoW. The more I read about WoW on UO''s boards the happier I am that I don't play it.

UO is a ten year old game that has every aspect of it over documented all over the internet, UO is as complicated as you (not you specifically OP, but whoever) find searching for information.

 

[the 4th man]

sanbox to a theme park?? what???????

WoW is limited, there's your sandbox edges right there, UO is not. UO requires imagination, WoW does not. I tried world of whatever, raising skills and levels is like a console game.....and, once you do it all, there's nothing left.

Pixel crack is nice, for a short spell, but once the hoopla ends, what do you have left??

I 100% disagree with you.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

I actually love complex games. I've been playing UO since 1998 (with a break) and there are still many things I haven't done or discovered yet. Must be, because I like the pirate's life too much.

 

[Infiniti]

sanbox to a theme park?? what???????

WoW is limited, there's your sandbox edges right there, UO is not. UO requires imagination, WoW does not. I tried world of whatever, raising skills and levels is like a console game.....and, once you do it all, there's nothing left.

Pixel crack is nice, for a short spell, but once the hoopla ends, what do you have left??

I 100% disagree with you.

I absolutely agree with you!!! I tried WOW also, and got soooo bored with it. Same thing over and over. UO offers a great variety of things to do and I love it.

 

[Velvathos]

sanbox to a theme park?? what???????

WoW is limited, there's your sandbox edges right there, UO is not. UO requires imagination, WoW does not. I tried world of whatever, raising skills and levels is like a console game.....and, once you do it all, there's nothing left.

Pixel crack is nice, for a short spell, but once the hoopla ends, what do you have left??

I 100% disagree with you.

World of Warcraft in general is a very easy game while UO is not.. WoW has a auction house where you can find anything, UO fails me when it comes to finding items I want for lower prices.. Blizzard makes sure you can't lose any of your items, in UO you can, it is harder to deal with death in UO than in WoW.. This is the point I am coming across.. If WoW had no leveling, full player loot, non-item based, no classes, 100% skill based, good and evil alignments, kingdom building, naval combat, etc, but with it's easy to learn interface and unique attractions such as its auction house, excellent tool for trading rather than thousands NPC's I gotta search through left and right, that just takes forever, so now I ask myself, do I went to spend this amount of time as a casual gamer?? Or do I want somethng quick and easy such as looking on an auction NPC for an item? Do I want to look, and look for a healer forever after I exit the dungeon that took me a couple minutes to get out of, to go back in and try to grab my things in a certain period of time? Or do I want to be teleported to a location and run back to my corpse to be resurrected at the spot? These are the features that Blizzard did right with WoW... The Devs can easily shorten the amount of time we need play UO by making things more conveninent or easy when it comes to shopping, death, etc, but keep it as a "sandbox game" It is not really a sandbox game anymore though with insurance and trammel and all.... UO is multiple styles and diverse gameplay all in one game...

 

[galefan2004]

Other than the AH system which didn't come from WoW it came from AC1 (I think or it was another game) WoW has no unique content. Also, it is not easier to get advanced in WoW. Some players play YEARS looking for an item they will never get from the RNG and can never buy.

Most of the players that play MMORPGs on a hardcore level get burnt out on WoW entirely in a year or more...the game has no staying power for the average player. Its a nice gateway MMORPG but after that it is completely boring and doing the same thing over and over and over and over with one character then another character and devoting 25-30 hours a week (part time job) just to raid for items is rediculous.

In the future please don't compare UO to WoW. UO is 10 years older than WoW is. If UO was new with WoW's graphics it would probably be dominating the market or at least coming in second.

 

[galefan2004]

The reason why WoW is so successful. Nice eye candy, and every idiot can play it without problems. All he has to understand is, how to level his character. Also, the most successful movies in the cinemas are Hollywood-Blockbusters with nice special effects and no real story behind it.

The biggest problem with WoW is that any idiot honestly can play it but a bunch of idiots can't accomplish anything end game. It is amazing how much easier things are to with people that know what they are doing when it comes to end game raiding. So, you have a game that markets to morons, allows morons to level, and then sticks it to morons because they can't handle simple concepts like get in the water or don't stand in the circle. In order to continue to cater to those morons though WoW created a method that let them run the same content 1 million times to get a pretty pixelated peice of junk.

If EA would give UO a modern engine and decent graphics, this game would rock the market. No other game can attract players for such a long time.

Short of making a UO2 that kept the best systems of UO and dumped the rest but made a fresh client and fresh graphics I don't see how they will ever successfuly update UO. Look at what happened with KR. You can argue that EQ refreshed the client and looks of that game successfully, but they also weren't dealing with literally thousands of different item types.

Having a "complicated" (I rather call it complex) game is no problem, though. It is up to each player, how deep he's gonna dig into the game and find out or learn things. Even with little knowledge about UO's depth you can have loads of fun in this game. New players will be thrilled by New Haven quests, Britannia's places of interest and the old dungeon long enough. They have time to figure out how the game works, learn, improve, and go for the difficult stuff later. No other game offers this bandwith of playing options.

A lot of the blame here comes to the fan sites in my opinion. Most of the fan sites have simply not kept up to date with the changes made in EA. Stratics and other sites still have extremely outdated information. Most of that information was in the old forums. I really don't get why they are trying to retrieve that old data when it was outdated in 2004.

 

[DuHast]

games entirely based on questing suck

uos staying power is the freedom it gives player to do what ever , at the same time this makes it harder on newer player that dont have a exsisting freind ingame . where in wow the game keeps u busy doin quest. after playing a game like uo so many years i cant see why anyone would play wow or games like it for a long period of time , then i remeber how it was the first few months i was here how other players tricked me to go to fel and take the few items i had worked o so hard for .

 

[Joyous2K]

I just read the deathstrike calculation thread and so, yes, UO is too complicated, but it is really well balanced. I can also be a chef or a thief if I wanted.

 

[love2winalot]

The game is complicated. What makes it worse is all the outdated information, or, no information at all, on their site. IMHOP, You should not have to scan the internet and bookmark 3-4 different sites to find accurate up to date information.

If they contacted, "Prima" publishing, and made a new Guid book, how many pages would that book be? EA/Mythic keeps adding to game, and says, "Hey, let someone else keep our players informed".

 

[THP]

It would be Compilcated yes to our children ..but we dont let them play our game do we?? I hope not....

UO can be whatever u want it to be...u can play very simply or u can play very complicated. Thats the beauty of UO ...theres no set format...u can do basically whatever u want to do..be it fishing for a few hours ..or a npc quest...of mining and making ingots to sell...etc etc ..really its endless...totally endless....

 

[Belmarduk]

No
You want a theme-park game?????
Uo is fine as it is and yes Eve may be a little more complicated at the beginning.

But like in Eve a new player can start with small things - doenst have to know how special things work right at the beginning !

 

[Jhym]

Hmmm. Yes, UO went wrong, which is why it's been around over ten years. Obviously there is something horribly wrong!!!

Some people don't get it -- building a world for people to play in DOESN'T mean it should be EASY. There should be help understanding it and building your characters, but after you get the basics the rest should be totally up to you.

I always love the silly comparisons to other online games that have nothing to do with UO.

 

[Nystul]

"Is UO too complicated?"

Maybe for a third grader!

 

[Nystul]

"UO being a Sandbox (kind of) and WoW being a Theme Park"

In a sand box you can create a masterpiece. In a theme park you are limited to whats available.

I would rather create my crazy homes and my insane templates. There are no limitations in the sandbox.

 

[MysticLlama]

Yea.. UO is a complex sandbox.. a sandbox that cat's often visit. It's complex, and some parts of it have some stinkyness issues... and some stinkyness has been buried under fine layers of sand. So be careful where you play

But seriously - a while ago a friend of mine returned to UO, and when I asked him why, he said "i missed the depth and complexity"

 

[Galad]

Yes, way too complicated especially post AOS.

 

[Norrar]

All hail UOs greatness not complexity!

 

[Uvtha]

Too complicated? Not at all. It could stand to be far more complex.

Complexity of game poorly presented/documented, and as such hard to learn? Yeah ill go for that.

 

[Lord Kynd]

i find uo easy, watch freinds play WoW and go screw that complicated crap,... script's,flashing icon's,overdone hitpints on everything,monsters that are huge tall?etc ... who needs all that garbage ?

kinda like orc brut's , WTH happened ? steroid's ? orc's are smaller than players not 2 storys tall..

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

*smile. You think UO has a steep learning curve? You should try EVE.

Haha, isn't that the truth. 2 years in and I still don't venture too far from my home base...to be honest, all I have done over the last 6 months is train skills while docked, lol...almost at 8 mill skill points, lol...la

 

[Loqucious]

Yep, this game is now far too complicated, but I still love it.

However, I do feel for new players because the learning curve must be a bear.

 

[Still Frame]

Simply put

UO - for people who can adapt

WoW - People who can click their mouse once and have no actual skill

easy choice uo >wow

 

[Tina Small]

I don't think UO is too complicated. Yes, there is a bit of a learning curve to be able to get yourself going and the documentation for new players is difficult to find. However, it does exist on the official UO site and elsewhere. Unfortunately, I think there will always be folks who just don't like to read or have a learning style that lends itself more towards learning by doing rather than learning by reading and UO currently just isn't set up too well to accommodate that learning style past a certain point. The way New Haven has been redesigned and the quests that are available there are certainly a big improvement over what I was able to find as a new player three and a half years ago. The quests and the tutors seem to be geared more towards "learning by doing." I haven't had a chance to get one myself, but I think the skill gain tutor from the Dark Knight challenge in the KR client is something else that was added to help out new players but has received little publicity.

So where UO went wrong was making the game too complicated, where as in World of Warcraft, you have a nice auction system, no item randomness, items aren't difficult, they increase your stats and gives you more armor, about it, and the game is just easier to play and get around.. UO has something that WoW does not, especially on Siege Perilous, you don't have any player restrictions that don't make sense, and that is what player freedom is all about.. UO however, is too difficult for the casual gamer, it takes a VERY long time to get things you need, people shouldn't have to go to a bank and spam or look on thousands of NPC's to get an item you need or want, add in an auction system instead.. This is an example of where UO went wrong.

A very wise friend once told me that one of the ways developers keep folks hooked on a game is by continually nerfing existing items and skills so that you must always be replacing items or tweaking skills. Keeping that principle in mind, I think it's fair to say that it should require some effort on the part of new players to get the things they need and then quite a bit longer, perhaps several to many years, to get the things they want. If you can successfully get the things you need in order to be able to go out and do some basic monster bashing or crafting and selling of items, then eventually you will become proficient and/or rich enough over time to go after much more desirable items. If UO were designed to let you get everything you could possibly want within the space of six to nine months, I don't think it would have the number of veteran players that it has today. Unfortunately, UO seems to have suffered from a lack of marketing and/or stiff competition from some other games and currently lacks a significant inflow of new players. I have a wee bit of confidence this is being addressed now that the UO staff seems to be settling into their new location(s). I guess time will tell though.

One last thought for you. You mentioned an auction system. I have very mixed feelings on this issue. I'm one of those people that really doesn't like to shop and wants to get it done as efficiently as quickly as possible when I do have to do it. I also have no patience for setting up and maintaining vendors. However, I realize that there are many people playing UO who greatly enjoy playing the role of merchant. I worry that if we got an efficient auction system, we would not only lose the very colorful and unique vendor houses but also lose the folks who enjoy merchanting. While we might gain efficiency, I think it would be achieved at a terrible price. Hopefully we will some day see an official information system that lets folks like me feel like we can do our shopping a little more efficiently but doesn't kill off the merchanting role.

 

[Amber Moon]

It's really a silly question to ask in the context of online forums for the game about which you are asking and begs the additional qualifier of 'complex for whom?".

All playerbases self select to those who like the game pretty much as it is. The others who might have considered it too complex or not complex enough have already long since departed.

This is one of the reasons it is so hard to bring new players into an aging game. If you shift the game too much away from the folks already there, you lose them and you will find them difficult to replace.

Think of it like a 100 year old grandma.. she's pretty delicate so better not to do radical surgeries.

 

[Limlight]

I am confused....

 

[Mythic]

where as in World of Warcraft, you have a nice auction system, no item randomness, items aren't difficult, they increase your stats and gives you more armor, about it, and the game is just easier to play and get around.. UO has something that WoW does not, especially on Siege Perilous, you don't have any player restrictions that don't make sense, and that is what player freedom is all about.. /discuss

UO FTW!

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Is there a specific reason you rezzed this thread?...la