Hey folks,
I'm new to UO somewhat. I've probably played around 500 hours. First go I played in 2020. The game has a lot of complexity and hidden knowledge so I started with a very basic pure fighter. Luckily people on Atlantic were extremely helpful. There's a lot of information of course on here and throughout the web since the release. As I asked question after question and spammed veteran players repeatedly for knowledge... I went from zero to 10 million plus gold. I got a house, some of the expansions and I took a break. I've returned again and am enjoying myself once more. Although I'm somewhat new to UO, I've been testing and playing sandbox mmorpgs since Shadowbane back in 2003. Probably docked a good 10-20k hours in them. I've always been interested in getting deep into the games mechanics and giving feedback to devs based on my experience and others.
I really think with the right formula UO could be so much more popular than it is. There really isn't another game in the genre that's still official out there with as much depth and community interaction. Feel like the new player experience and the current monetization is really stunting it's growth and making the game stale. Most players won't be as patient or persistent as myself in a game like this. Most people don't even know it still exists. The common reaction to me playing/streaming UO is... "This game still exists?".
Just from my experience and observing others. I feel like the current monetization model is just horrible, outdated and absolutely not conducive to people enjoying playing or progressing naturally. In games like this, you want to make the progression fun and rewarding. You don't want the monetization to be revolved around skipping the entire game and progression. It seems like they make their money from people skipping the whole game, buying gold, tokens etc.. This is very off putting to most players looking to start. There are so many cool environments, dungeons and areas. A great variety of monsters and animals also exist. Looting is fun, there is so much loot dropping to go through.
I feel like they need to boost the skill gains all across the board and tweak some skills to make grinding less painful. Especially the taming skill, it seems like they make a lot of money just charging tamers to level up with real cash. A nice boost to skill gain and also making taming raise slowly by just controlling creatures in combat would really perk up their progression. I'm not saying make it fast or instant gratification at all. Just enough so that it's not completely grueling. There are a few of the skills in the game that feel this way. I know that you can get scrolls of alacrity and transcendence. But, these are some of the items new players will not be able to afford naturally for some time. The days of people standing still clicking for hundreds of hours are long gone(for most, especially new people). Tweak some of the skills that require that type of tedious content so they get skill gain from doing more active and fun activities. Then, once you make the progression more fun... you take away the skipping monetization. You add monetization on cosmetics and boosting gains. Accelerate skill gains on subscription accounts, but, make F2P accounts still doable and sell boosts. Make the boosts purchasable through in game currency as well. Then focus highly on cosmetics! Look at the other popular and successful f2p and current models of games like: DotA 2, League of Legends, Runescape
There seem to be quite a bit of bugs still in the game as well. I was clearing deceit and noticed the stairs are really buggy and some of the mobs as well. A nice readjustment of dungeons and mob areas. Especially those that people straight up don't ever go to. One big thing as well would be new cyclical servers. Once they get the progression to be fun and organically playing the game... NEW cyclical servers! From playing so much Shadowbane we learned over time people love the rise! Look at Escape From Tarkov as well. I think if they made 4 server types per year it would be amazing. Make a Siege Perilous server that has zero pay to win, sub only and one that is also stock with the f2p/p2w system. You can see with the popularity of private servers a good chunk of people want to play on a server without Trammel. Then make two the same way but traditional server type, one without any p2w and sub only and another with the f2p/p2w features. I think people would really enjoy this. You could even call them "Seasons" or "Eras". Personally I would love to play a sub only without f2p/p2w. You could also make an "Era" pass for extra monetization purely based off of character and house cosmetics!
I know the game is old and the dev team is probably small. But, this game still has a lot of life left and there really isn't another official game out there like it. The art style is also timeless IMO. I would love to hear from others and especially long time experienced players on what they could improve to make the game more approachable to new players. Maybe send it off to the dev team for ideas. I just really needed to express what I feel could improve the game after learning to play in recent times from a new player, but long time mmo gamer. I recently got 2 new players into the game. The new player experience needs a big rework for sure.
I'm new to UO somewhat. I've probably played around 500 hours. First go I played in 2020. The game has a lot of complexity and hidden knowledge so I started with a very basic pure fighter. Luckily people on Atlantic were extremely helpful. There's a lot of information of course on here and throughout the web since the release. As I asked question after question and spammed veteran players repeatedly for knowledge... I went from zero to 10 million plus gold. I got a house, some of the expansions and I took a break. I've returned again and am enjoying myself once more. Although I'm somewhat new to UO, I've been testing and playing sandbox mmorpgs since Shadowbane back in 2003. Probably docked a good 10-20k hours in them. I've always been interested in getting deep into the games mechanics and giving feedback to devs based on my experience and others.
I really think with the right formula UO could be so much more popular than it is. There really isn't another game in the genre that's still official out there with as much depth and community interaction. Feel like the new player experience and the current monetization is really stunting it's growth and making the game stale. Most players won't be as patient or persistent as myself in a game like this. Most people don't even know it still exists. The common reaction to me playing/streaming UO is... "This game still exists?".
Just from my experience and observing others. I feel like the current monetization model is just horrible, outdated and absolutely not conducive to people enjoying playing or progressing naturally. In games like this, you want to make the progression fun and rewarding. You don't want the monetization to be revolved around skipping the entire game and progression. It seems like they make their money from people skipping the whole game, buying gold, tokens etc.. This is very off putting to most players looking to start. There are so many cool environments, dungeons and areas. A great variety of monsters and animals also exist. Looting is fun, there is so much loot dropping to go through.
I feel like they need to boost the skill gains all across the board and tweak some skills to make grinding less painful. Especially the taming skill, it seems like they make a lot of money just charging tamers to level up with real cash. A nice boost to skill gain and also making taming raise slowly by just controlling creatures in combat would really perk up their progression. I'm not saying make it fast or instant gratification at all. Just enough so that it's not completely grueling. There are a few of the skills in the game that feel this way. I know that you can get scrolls of alacrity and transcendence. But, these are some of the items new players will not be able to afford naturally for some time. The days of people standing still clicking for hundreds of hours are long gone(for most, especially new people). Tweak some of the skills that require that type of tedious content so they get skill gain from doing more active and fun activities. Then, once you make the progression more fun... you take away the skipping monetization. You add monetization on cosmetics and boosting gains. Accelerate skill gains on subscription accounts, but, make F2P accounts still doable and sell boosts. Make the boosts purchasable through in game currency as well. Then focus highly on cosmetics! Look at the other popular and successful f2p and current models of games like: DotA 2, League of Legends, Runescape
There seem to be quite a bit of bugs still in the game as well. I was clearing deceit and noticed the stairs are really buggy and some of the mobs as well. A nice readjustment of dungeons and mob areas. Especially those that people straight up don't ever go to. One big thing as well would be new cyclical servers. Once they get the progression to be fun and organically playing the game... NEW cyclical servers! From playing so much Shadowbane we learned over time people love the rise! Look at Escape From Tarkov as well. I think if they made 4 server types per year it would be amazing. Make a Siege Perilous server that has zero pay to win, sub only and one that is also stock with the f2p/p2w system. You can see with the popularity of private servers a good chunk of people want to play on a server without Trammel. Then make two the same way but traditional server type, one without any p2w and sub only and another with the f2p/p2w features. I think people would really enjoy this. You could even call them "Seasons" or "Eras". Personally I would love to play a sub only without f2p/p2w. You could also make an "Era" pass for extra monetization purely based off of character and house cosmetics!
I know the game is old and the dev team is probably small. But, this game still has a lot of life left and there really isn't another official game out there like it. The art style is also timeless IMO. I would love to hear from others and especially long time experienced players on what they could improve to make the game more approachable to new players. Maybe send it off to the dev team for ideas. I just really needed to express what I feel could improve the game after learning to play in recent times from a new player, but long time mmo gamer. I recently got 2 new players into the game. The new player experience needs a big rework for sure.
