I
imported_Varka
Guest
It was U.Hall made flesh. Between the Australian guy bragging about how he goes from shard to shard single-handedly devestating the champ spawners with his 64 mana regen/blah blah trammie blah PVP suit, and people complaining about needing more housing space, and people complaining that elven clothing won't fit humans, it was about all I could do to keep from shrieking and plugging up my ears with ripped pieces of napkin.
In a nutshell, it's Diablo II style graphics, with a World of Warcraft-inspired interface.
It's pretty. Nice lighting effects, particle effects, smoke/dust/etc. Water looks nice. Daytime/nightime now actually is a gradual process.
We will no longer have backpacks, only a generic item list of one sort or another, ala WoW's "bag" interface. I was much amused when, shortly after I complained about that change, he took off his sword and had to load the 2d client to find it in his backpack to put back on his paperdoll, because he couldn't find it in his inventory list.
Toolbars/hotkey bars along the bottom of the screen, ala WoW/Everquest/etc.
Conflicting reports on the life expectancy of the "legacy" clients: Initially he said "a very long time" then he said "Once UO:KR is used by the vast majority of subscribers we'll make a decision about retiring the old clients."
System requirements might be as low as PIII 1 gigahertz and 256 megs of ram, and a Geforce3-class video card.
UO:KR will only be a client upgrade, no new content; new playable race will be in the "Stygian Abyss" upgrade.
He demonstrated a really groovy "zoom" feature, that could zoom the normal gameplay screen out to where you could fit about a third of Zento(?) on a single screen. Could be useful for spawns if it makes it into the final cut.
New monsters look pretty good. Earth elementals look pretty impressive, but oddly the balron graphic was much less intimidating than a summoned daemon; looked more like a gargoyle than a balron.
You can sit down on your bed. Hooray?
They're getting rid of neon. He put on some orange chainmail and green leggings which I assume are neon in the current clients, and it was much more subdued than either of the current clients would display.
Enhanced in-game chat, which I assume is going to be some sort of buddy list or /tell system.
Targetting seemed to be much improved(?). Some spells and effects seemed to auto-target whoever you currently had selected. Potions/etc. don't stack, but you can drag them (and bandages and spells) to the hotkey bar and use them with a function key. I had hoped for a significantly improved macro interface, but this might mean the opposite.
I really have mixed feelings about the new client. Maybe having a "standard" sort of interface will be a benefit to players trying it out who are used to playing Everquest, or World of Warcraft, but I'd be a litle concerned that taking UO even further down the road of being a "WoW wanna-be" might simply push people over to other games.
In a nutshell, it's Diablo II style graphics, with a World of Warcraft-inspired interface.
It's pretty. Nice lighting effects, particle effects, smoke/dust/etc. Water looks nice. Daytime/nightime now actually is a gradual process.
We will no longer have backpacks, only a generic item list of one sort or another, ala WoW's "bag" interface. I was much amused when, shortly after I complained about that change, he took off his sword and had to load the 2d client to find it in his backpack to put back on his paperdoll, because he couldn't find it in his inventory list.
Toolbars/hotkey bars along the bottom of the screen, ala WoW/Everquest/etc.
Conflicting reports on the life expectancy of the "legacy" clients: Initially he said "a very long time" then he said "Once UO:KR is used by the vast majority of subscribers we'll make a decision about retiring the old clients."
System requirements might be as low as PIII 1 gigahertz and 256 megs of ram, and a Geforce3-class video card.
UO:KR will only be a client upgrade, no new content; new playable race will be in the "Stygian Abyss" upgrade.
He demonstrated a really groovy "zoom" feature, that could zoom the normal gameplay screen out to where you could fit about a third of Zento(?) on a single screen. Could be useful for spawns if it makes it into the final cut.
New monsters look pretty good. Earth elementals look pretty impressive, but oddly the balron graphic was much less intimidating than a summoned daemon; looked more like a gargoyle than a balron.
You can sit down on your bed. Hooray?
They're getting rid of neon. He put on some orange chainmail and green leggings which I assume are neon in the current clients, and it was much more subdued than either of the current clients would display.
Enhanced in-game chat, which I assume is going to be some sort of buddy list or /tell system.
Targetting seemed to be much improved(?). Some spells and effects seemed to auto-target whoever you currently had selected. Potions/etc. don't stack, but you can drag them (and bandages and spells) to the hotkey bar and use them with a function key. I had hoped for a significantly improved macro interface, but this might mean the opposite.
I really have mixed feelings about the new client. Maybe having a "standard" sort of interface will be a benefit to players trying it out who are used to playing Everquest, or World of Warcraft, but I'd be a litle concerned that taking UO even further down the road of being a "WoW wanna-be" might simply push people over to other games.
