It's time to remove Soul Stones from the game...

[Deraj]

...as items.

*ahem* Now that I have your attention...

I think that the devs should do to soul stones something similar to what they did to gold, which would be to make soul stones, which are account bound by nature, a menu-accessible feature that would allow players to more easily swap out skills in log-out-safe areas. Aside from craftable soul stone fragments, is there really any practical purpose to full soul stones existing as actual items in the game, when by their nature they are account bound and their ownership is non-transferable?

How it could work:
*Full soul stones, still sold as tokens through the store, no longer come as items but are added to your soul stone inventory for your account, for the specific shard they are activated on.
*Soul stone fragments, which could still be craftable items, can also be added to the soul stone inventory and per their nature have limited uses before disappearing.
*Like gold, soul stones could be transferred to a shard-transfer inventory if the player wants to move them to another shard.

Benefits:
*No more risk of losing soul stones which, while I very much believe the game is lacking in terms of risk and challenge, I honestly don't think should be a factor for these items. How many potential returning players have been dissuaded from returning because of lost soul stones? I know at least a few myself. It shouldn't really need to be an issue.
*If you have a lot of soul stones, searching through them can be made a lot easier via a menu.
*Frees up some storage space for all you hoarders.

Additional Functionality:
*I've always wish that a soul stone could directly swap skills (without needing a second soul stone) - being able to swap skills on the fly would be a tremendous quality-of-life improvement.
*Possibly controversial, but: allowing the ownership of a soul stone to be transferred to a different account / player. To be clear, I am not talking about transferring stones that have skills on them, only empty stones.

 

[The Craftsman]

Phew. Almost hit the 'yes' button until I realised that you weren't actually advocating removing soulstones from the game. Which they should. I'll abstain from the vote.

 

[Thrakkar]

Basically I'm ok with this idea, but the main question remains: Does the development effort (which isn't a small one here) justify the benefits?

*No more risk of losing soul stones which, while I very much believe the game is lacking in terms of risk and challenge, I honestly don't think should be a factor for these items. How many potential returning players have been dissuaded from returning because of lost soul stones? I know at least a few myself. It shouldn't really need to be an issue.

Is this really an issue? If you plan to quit, you should bank your most valueable items, which cannot be replaced, especially account bound stuff. Everyone has at least 5x125 slots for that or in the best case 7x150 slots.
And if you're playing the "let's just sub once every 3 months to keep the house standing"-game, you should probably do the same anyways.
As far as I see it, it is in everyones own responsibility to take care of his own items.

*If you have a lot of soul stones, searching through them can be made a lot easier via a menu.
*Frees up some storage space for all you hoarders.

How many soul stones does the average UO player have? I would guess, that the hoarders are just a minority, which doesn't have to be catered.

Conclusion: while it might be a good idea from a usability standpoint, it is not really necessary and thus doesn't justify the development effort, which could be spent on more pressing matters...

 

[Uvtha]

Conclusion: while it might be a good idea from a usability standpoint, it is not really necessary and thus doesn't justify the development effort, which could be spent on more pressing matters...

Honestly, I think at this point the vast majority of the population are vets of many years, and I think odds are most of them have at least some soul stones, and I would bet a good percentage have many. I feel like I never bought/claimed/received all that many but I think I probably have like 30 by now. Over the years they add up.

The effect on me would be limited since I only play a one char per account sever, but it would be nice just for simplicity sake to not have to move stones around.

 

[Deraj]

Phew. Almost hit the 'yes' button until I realised that you weren't actually advocating removing soulstones from the game. Which they should. I'll abstain from the vote.

In principle, their functionality should be removed entirely, I agree.

Is this really an issue? If you plan to quit, you should bank your most valueable items, which cannot be replaced, especially account bound stuff. Everyone has at least 5x125 slots for that or in the best case 7x150 slots.
And if you're playing the "let's just sub once every 3 months to keep the house standing"-game, you should probably do the same anyways.
As far as I see it, it is in everyones own responsibility to take care of his own items.

You're not wrong, and I always take care of my own pixels when I depart an MMO, but why implement an unnecessary risk? While again I do believe there needs to be more risk and loss in UO, but I don't really see the gameplay value in soul stones being items, especially when you cannot even transfer ownership and they have unlimited use. If only soul stone fragments were available then I could see a point, but as an unlimited-use account-bound item, would the integrity of the gameplay be harmed by transporting their functionality into a menu?

 

[Yadd of Legends]

I always thought soulstones were pretty cool looking

 

[MalagAste]

I never had an issue with them.... just with my own inability to remember to put things back on them before i delete a stupid character I made just for some RP short reason...

Still upset with myself for deleting my character with GM cooking.... Oi... *sighs*

 

[Lord Arm]

I say no way. I wont go into all the exploits I see that could be done. could use any skill any time any shard any char, bad idea. would be big loss in revenue off soulstone purchases because there would be no need for many soulstones. if u put soulstone in bank you wont lose them. just a waste of devs time where there are so many others thing that need to be worked on.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

I never had an issue with them.... just with my own inability to remember to put things back on them before i delete a stupid character I made just for some RP short reason...

Still upset with myself for deleting my character with GM cooking.... Oi... *sighs*

I've accidentally deleted skills from stones several times and had to rebuild them. But I don't recall it being all that hard to GM cooking by grilling stacks of raw fish

 

[Pawain]

Would be nice. I could get rid of all the fragments, save the space, and if the system could auto find and apply them I may have some that I didn't remember.

 

[Mandrake of DF]

Moron...just my 5 letters... Try play siege without soulstones... Get a hike, get lost or shut up. Either choices...Just dont reply.

 

[Cymidei]

In my opinion, it's good enough as it is.

 

[arkiu]

Excellent idea. When my account was banned for no reason, i lost everything but the 8+ soulstones i had locked down was just an added sting. They should at least be recoverable in situations where a player returns since they are useless to anyone else.

Additional benefit being that it removes that eyesore from the game - big and ugly. I lock em down inside chests so i dont have to see them.

 

[Gorath]

Maybe 2 skills can be stored per year an account is active with the players who own multiple stones getting those added as stored skills?

So 10 year old account gets 20 stored skill slots but if they happened to have owned 30 soulstones then they get 50 stored skills.

 

[GarthGrey]

It's time for you to cut me a check for about 500.00 US.

 

[Lady Storm]

Who died and left you lead producer of UO?
Stop trying to dictate policy and just enjoy the game.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

could use any skill any time any shard any char, bad idea.

I think this hits the nail on the head. There was a time when I argued for complete transferrability among shards, such as being able to jump freely between shards, and would have liked the OP's idea. But that was before I started building characters on many shards.
If I could just put my skills into an account, why should I keep building disco on my mystic on Pacific, when I could just borrow it from my mystic on Great Lakes? I think taking the trouble to invest some time and effort into building characters on each shard on which you want to play is part of the game.
Now that I've played on a lot more shards than a couple years ago, I vote for keeping them separate. Cross-shard play is part of UO for most older players now, and this proposal would make it easier, yes, but ruin the challenge that makes it a game.
Not to speak, of course, as has been mentioned, of the loss of revenue from players buying soulstones, so the idea is dead in the water anyway.

 

[arkiu]

Who died and left you lead producer of UO?
Stop trying to dictate policy and just enjoy the game.

Whoaaa Lady Storm where did that come from? Getting rowdy right out of the gate

 

[SpyderBite]

I'm good with removing them all together. Definitely make player vendors/crafters more important again on Siege. With Soulstones now.. I don't shop for anything except looted items and resources.

 

[Capt. Lucky]

But but but... they flash pretty colors!

 

[Ellie]

Cookin skill is easy. Just make dough. It will take you to gm. Then you will have a ton of dough for all the cooking bods.

 

[Alex"Drake Iron Heart"CS]

...as items.

*ahem* Now that I have your attention...

I think that the devs should do to soul stones something similar to what they did to gold, which would be to make soul stones, which are account bound by nature, a menu-accessible feature that would allow players to more easily swap out skills in log-out-safe areas. Aside from craftable soul stone fragments, is there really any practical purpose to full soul stones existing as actual items in the game, when by their nature they are account bound and their ownership is non-transferable?

How it could work:
*Full soul stones, still sold as tokens through the store, no longer come as items but are added to your soul stone inventory for your account, for the specific shard they are activated on.
*Soul stone fragments, which could still be craftable items, can also be added to the soul stone inventory and per their nature have limited uses before disappearing.
*Like gold, soul stones could be transferred to a shard-transfer inventory if the player wants to move them to another shard.

Benefits:
*No more risk of losing soul stones which, while I very much believe the game is lacking in terms of risk and challenge, I honestly don't think should be a factor for these items. How many potential returning players have been dissuaded from returning because of lost soul stones? I know at least a few myself. It shouldn't really need to be an issue.
*If you have a lot of soul stones, searching through them can be made a lot easier via a menu.
*Frees up some storage space for all you hoarders.

Additional Functionality:
*I've always wish that a soul stone could directly swap skills (without needing a second soul stone) - being able to swap skills on the fly would be a tremendous quality-of-life improvement.
*Possibly controversial, but: allowing the ownership of a soul stone to be transferred to a different account / player. To be clear, I am not talking about transferring stones that have skills on them, only empty stones.

People that lose their soul stones by leaving them in their castle and then not paying their sub and then the castle falling and they losing it all, is not a excuse whatsoever to have to lobby/ bring an idea to get them taken away from the game. With all respect, they are just Iediots, which should of thought ahead, not hope they come back and its all going to be the same, its their loss, the community should not have to pay for their Fack ups.
They could of put the SS in the bank and never lost them in the 1st place....

I have been to many IDOCs and I have collected 100s of SS for people, I give them 6 months normally to be able to come back and get them if not they are thrown into the bin for cleanup points. Plenty of time for people to collect their hard earned and trained skills.


They dont take storage sorry, I rather get rid of BODS than soulstones if you going down the storage path......
Or even make runics be able to be put into the machines that we have been given for veteran rewards..... that only take normal hammers!!!

 

[OREOGL]

Would be nice. I could get rid of all the fragments, save the space, and if the system could auto find and apply them I may have some that I didn't remember.

I don't agree with this applying to Soulstone frags.

These are of limit uses and should stay the same

 

[Uvtha]

Moron...just my 5 letters... Try play siege without soulstones... Get a hike, get lost or shut up. Either choices...Just dont reply.

Read beyond the title.

 

[MalagAste]

Cookin skill is easy. Just make dough. It will take you to gm. Then you will have a ton of dough for all the cooking bods.

I remember how I got to GM was cooking millions of fish steaks... I had a fisherman and getting fish steaks was easy... now you get weird fish from that... and no more piles of plain fish steaks to cook. Too bad I can't cook up the 8million plain lobster and crab... wouldn't that be yummy...

 

[Deraj]

I say no way. I wont go into all the exploits I see that could be done. could use any skill any time any shard any char, bad idea. would be big loss in revenue off soulstone purchases because there would be no need for many soulstones. if u put soulstone in bank you wont lose them. just a waste of devs time where there are so many others thing that need to be worked on.

"There could be exploits". How is this an argument? You could say that about literally anything the devs put into the game. Did you say that about currency conversion?

Did you actually read my post? I did not suggest that the skills would be openly transferable across shards (unless you transferred the soul stone itself into the inventory on another shard, which is possible with the current system), nor did I suggest they should be functional outside of log-out zones. Let's work on reading comprehension before responding next time please.

Moron...just my 5 letters... Try play siege without soulstones... Get a hike, get lost or shut up. Either choices...Just dont reply.

Someone didn't read the post. Would you like to apologize for that unnecessary, disrespectful response that is a violation of the rules of this forum?

Maybe 2 skills can be stored per year an account is active with the players who own multiple stones getting those added as stored skills?

So 10 year old account gets 20 stored skill slots but if they happened to have owned 30 soulstones then they get 50 stored skills.

It's an interesting thought but I don't think the devs would go for it since they have an interest in selling soul stones on their store.

Who died and left you lead producer of UO?
Stop trying to dictate policy and just enjoy the game.

I posted a suggestion, which is done all the time on this forum. Are you trying to troll me ma'am?

People that lose their soul stones by leaving them in their castle and then not paying their sub and then the castle falling and they losing it all, is not a excuse whatsoever to have to lobby/ bring an idea to get them taken away from the game. With all respect, they are just Iediots, which should of thought ahead, not hope they come back and its all going to be the same, its their loss, the community should not have to pay for their Fack ups.
They could of put the SS in the bank and never lost them in the 1st place....

In what way is the community being penalized for someone's mistakes by having a soul stone inventory that would make soul stone management easier for all players? Sure, it's not exactly smart to not pack up your stuff if you leave the game, but screw 'em anyways?

 

[Ox_AO]

Deraj It would seem a large number of people here doesn't seem to understand what you're suggesting.
Many people stop with the title and assume they know what the rest of the post is.

Others like the decoration of the stone. Simply make them like old guild stones.
You might also have to explain how the stone can be transferred from shard to shard (through the bank menu)

 

[Coco_Zamis_DF]

Well, everybody including me, who left his soulstones in their house are in a risk of loosing them. I didn't know where is was, but one one shard i found a graveyard of soulstones hosted by an EM?

At least they are nice items, blinking! and colorful. So why remove thoose items.
I think we have bigger problems than lost skills to get more players.

 

[GarthGrey]

I remember how I got to GM was cooking millions of fish steaks... I had a fisherman and getting fish steaks was easy... now you get weird fish from that... and no more piles of plain fish steaks to cook. Too bad I can't cook up the 8million plain lobster and crab... wouldn't that be yummy...

Millions huh ?

 

[swampjumper]

No Way Hosea I paid for a lot of soulstones I like them aqnd want to keep them I keep my accounts paid up dont try playing russian roulette by not paying supscription and when Losing try to stiff others who have paid that would be a quitting point for me.

 

[The Craftsman]

No Way Hosea I paid for a lot of soulstones I like them aqnd want to keep them I keep my accounts paid up dont try playing russian roulette by not paying supscription and when Losing try to stiff others who have paid that would be a quitting point for me.

What???

 

[Igg A Pie]

Moron...just my 5 letters... Try play siege without soulstones... Get a hike, get lost or shut up. Either choices...Just dont reply.

i totally disagree with your statement.........and here is why:

i have mentioned this before. IMO siege should be played without soulstones. So for arguements sake, isnt that what siege is all about? now i know that noone could have seen this coming when soulstones were first introduced, but i think soulstones totally ruined siege. (ALONG WITH AOS) overall it takes away the sense of community, all be it the remaining souls on siege are great at community. however, you no longer have to find crafters to make your items, you no longer need to find a tamer to tame you that blue beetle, you dont need to find a bard to help you with that t-map or a necro mage to help you clear out those first few levels of despise. i can just put in the work training and over the course of time and create a skill library of soulstones that would allow me to switch out my skills whenever i want for what is convenient for me at the time. because generally speaking we are all about instant gratification, with soulstones you dont need to rely on someone you can just do it on your own

if you have one template, you would HAVE to rely on other people for help. you have to seek others for support. you would have to use general chat. you would no longer have the luxury of going into your bag of skills and selecting what you need for convience. you would need to become more sociable. guilds become more of a pillar to you. nitche skills sets become a preminum. it would force people to work together in groups to accomplish goals and make for better competition. the way i view siege now is kinda like this. there is one big guild on the shard. they are sucessful because they have numbers, seasoned veterans of game mechanics and guild loyalty. there are two or three guilds that like to pvp and take advantage of the friendly care bear, cant we ll just get along style of pvp on siege. then you have 3,4 maybe 5 guilds with less than 5 members each that are in alliance to try and create an atmosphere similar to what the biggest guild on the shard has. lastly you got solo player who just play by their lonesome. i honestly believe that if there were no soulstones, your character is more defined who you want to be on siege. i think more people would play on siege because their skill set is now specialized. we would all have to rely on each other and what we could do for one another. more people equals more diversity. more diversity equals opportunity. more opportunity equals more fun.

as a disclamer this really only applys for siege but on prodo you have 7 characters..............do you really need soulstones? in my opinion no. but i am sure there is someone who will argue this point because thats what people like to do.....disagree or find reasons to. but hey, we are all entitled to our opinions. but if the UO gods said to me, "select up to 7 and only 7 skills to use for your template for the rest of your UO days on siege and thats what you will become." i know what skills i would select.....how about you?

 

[Pawain]

"There could be exploits". How is this an argument? You could say that about literally anything the devs put into the game. Did you say that about currency conversion?

Did you actually read my post? I did not suggest that the skills would be openly transferable across shards (unless you transferred the soul stone itself into the inventory on another shard, which is possible with the current system), nor did I suggest they should be functional outside of log-out zones. Let's work on reading comprehension before responding next time please.



Someone didn't read the post. Would you like to apologize for that unnecessary, disrespectful response that is a violation of the rules of this forum?



It's an interesting thought but I don't think the devs would go for it since they have an interest in selling soul stones on their store.



I posted a suggestion, which is done all the time on this forum. Are you trying to troll me ma'am?



In what way is the community being penalized for someone's mistakes by having a soul stone inventory that would make soul stone management easier for all players? Sure, it's not exactly smart to not pack up your stuff if you leave the game, but screw 'em anyways?

When your post is more than one sentence or includes a joke, some posters do not read the entire post and they read part of it and freak out and respond to the joke part or a part they partially read.

Many posters think you actually want to get rid of the soulstones abilities. I understand you would like the skills stored on soulstones to turn into a pop up menu.

It could be done with the bank. Put a soulstone in and it is included in your skill inventory.

I only see one problem. There are soulstone fragments with numbered uses. It would be difficult to integrate those with the infinite use soulstones.

They skills could be transferred to another shard like gold is. People who bought soulstones will still have more skills stored than those who didn't.

If you want to keep them for deco, don't put them in the bank.

 

[MalagAste]

Millions huh ?

Ok more like thousands ..... but when you cook them one by one it sure feels like millions... though as I recall I still had a fair stack left of my 60k pile... but it did put a significant dent in it... Was dull as all get out...

 

[Ox_AO]

Pawain
You made an interesting point about the charged soul stones. That would cause some problems with adding this to a menu system into
Deraj idea.

Modification to the idea (transfer items from character to character through the banking menu)
Keep the soul stones as they are. Allow transfers of the stone from one character to the next with in the banking menu. Target a soul stone or any object for that matter and the next character that logs in that item will drop into their bank.

That has always been the problem with soul stones. You need to hand the stone to the next character. most use a house or a second account.

This plan would fix the problems that Deraj is suggesting and a whole lot more.
To avoid any kind of duping. just add a few minute delay for the next log in.

A virtual banking system or one bank for all characters clearly isn't going to happen. The character is tied to their bank. That would be a programmers nightmare.

 

[Lord Frodo]

NO People sell soulstone tokens for UO Gold.