Prime example of why UO is losing player base.

[Teufel_Hund]

So your mad because the new seeds will spawn on Monsters?

I think its silly that they spawn on monsters so I can actually see you rpoint there, but I wouldnt allow that to make me mad.

Funny but I thought they always spawned on Monsters from day one?

 

[Uriah Heep]

I am sure that each and every one of you must have had at least one or two friends leave our world.
---------------------

*laughs*

I've had two entire guilds leave, with the exception of a few die hards like me.
One went to SWG, the other to WoW.
And the complaints in both cases were about teh same...customer support, communication, poor event mechanics ( one guild was all mages...If they were still playing, man, the pancakes that woulda been on here about this last event and no summons or area spells in town still!), and the (at the time) seemingly endless parade of nerf one playstyle, overpower another, rinse and repeat.

So yeah, I know what it's like to watch groups of friends leave, in some cases, friends and guildmates that we had RL get togethers with on several occasions.

 

[Wenchkin]

I don't think these seeds in themselves are killing UO, but as part of the bigger picture, I can see why the OP feels the way they do.

Yeah, we can all make fighters, and UO would be dull without those. But a good MMORPG to some players, myself included, allows us to earn our coin in different ways. I played for years on a connection which was at times, unplayable for fighting. On those days, I crafted. Had I needed to rely on fighting skills to gather basic materials, I wouldn't have enjoyed the game so much. I'd have been stuck twiddling my thumbs till it was safer to go out hunting.

To be fair, a crafter can buy resources. I considered that with peerless items, because I have no interest in peerless hunting, but wanted to sell crafted arties. But the end price for a craftable arty made from said items, wouldn't have made a profit had I bought those resources. That's one example. The other reason some crafters wouldn't buy resources is fear of supporting cheats who script. I support that view, so I offer what I can make and leave others to sell the rest.

I accept that crafters are more reliant on fighters nowadays, however there's a fine line between a healthy co-operation and total reliance. Especially considering that the basic craftables aren't all viable in the marketplace now. The more we get high end craftables, the further we tie crafters to fighters, because their basic craftables are less sellable.

I don't think these seeds spell the end of UO. But I do think the OP has raised valid concerns, and would appreciate it if EA would bear in mind the "self-sufficient" and RPing type crafters as well as those who are more interested in fighting.

Wenchy

 

[Eslake]

So what would you rather do?

Kill a creature and take the seeds from it's stomach.

or

Wander around the forest digging through double whopper with cheese.

Hmmmm?

Honestly?
Being able to walk around Useing a pitchfork to find seeds would be a very neat change.
Specially if you got catci seeds in the deserts, water plant types in swamps, and things like that.

In this thread we get your point but I wonder if you have any pots that you have grown from scratch yourself.

All of mine are from plants I grew/crossed myself from seeds I got from bog things myself.
I currently have over 60 growing. In 3 days I will be doing another set of an additional 20 plants trying for white prickly pears.
If they all worked like Bonsai, I would have none.

 

[Thrand Graywolf]

So your mad because the new seeds will spawn on Monsters?

I'm confused by all this complaining about the new seeds. The original seeds were also only available on monsters...so what's the problem?

People who fight these things will half the time leave them unlooted anyway...just stealth around checking bodies.

 

[Thrand Graywolf]

Remember the old days of going to the smith to find a player to repair you armour? When was the last time any of you did that.

Well...honestly...no offense or anything...but I never gave my armor to a random smith to repair. I wouldn't even do it before AOS, I definitely wouldn't do it now.

Until repair deeds came along, I used a mule to fix stuff myself. Since repair deeds I've tried to spread business around as much as I can...whenever I find any I usually buy the vendor dry just to help the crafter, so there's no need for me to have a mule to fix my stuff anymore.

People who clamor for item decay with the excuse of giving crafters more work forget that when a crafter was a required part of character maintenance...most people made a mule because they didn't want to be dependent on someone else that may or may not be around when they needed them.

 

[Teeshy]

I just can't understand how anyone who plays the game (as she supposedly does) could believe people really want to plant huge masses of plants and wait 7 days to know if they are going to get even a single one they actually want.
Let alone having to do it all over again if they don't, or if they want more of any particular kind.

I have to say, I actually am one of the (apparently few!) who will look forward to exactly that!

I'm just a big kid at heart, and I *like* the surprise. I even avoid the board as much as possible when seasonal gifts are given out, cos I like the surprise of logging in and seeing what I've been gifted with =D

It's all part of the fun for me =)

 

[Silly Seadog]

Arrrr, ye can't be havin' fun, now, this be srs bsnss!

 

[RenaLynne]

Exactly how I feel about this. If they have to spawn on monsters why can't we just get a few new plant type monsters to spawn them on and range the difficulty on those from weak to tough. At least that would make sense. Why else would a monster that is not of plant type have a seed on it? It must like eating seeds or something I guess. That or a bird double whopper with cheese on it...

But one thing this thread did make me think about was the lack of things for non standard characters to do. Crafters, tamers, mages, dexxers (including archers) are the only good templates left in the game now. And the entire reason is that nothing new that is worth while to do was added for other character types.

Thieves only ever get new stealable artifacts in dungeons but simply adding new stuff to steal does not make having a thief worth the slot on the account how many random objects left laying in dungeons can you steal before you just lose interest in the idea?

Fishers got leviathans and white pearls but they were added far apart and pretty much everyone is tired of that by now I am sure. I know fishing is not worth wasting the skill points on because it currently takes up one of my soulstones.

We have a nice list of skills no longer useful for anything such as hearding, forensic eval, item ID, begging and more. Something should have been done with these skills long ago to make them useful again and no I do not recommend doing something like the arms lore thing that was halfassed to say the least but I won't complain to much because at least the skill serves a purpose instead of doing nothing at all.

Anyhow you get the idea here. All we really need is a good expansion that makes use of all the things in UO that are currently worthless and I think a lot of players would really be happy including myself. I would love to have a reason to make different characters and be able to play a larger variety of styles.

Yea...I agree with you, just like my thief that I never use because, admittedly, she doesnt like stealing from other people. So she has nothing to amuse herself with. Its definately time for a UO makeover.

 

[FrejaSP]

If they all worked like Bonsai, I would have none.

The problem with Bonsai is, they are small and not very useful as deco and I do not like Bonsai plants at all, would never treat a plant like that or own one irl.

 

[Eslake]

We have a nice list of skills no longer useful for anything such as hearding, forensic eval, item ID, begging and more. Something should have been done with these skills long ago to make them useful again and no I do not recommend doing something like the arms lore thing that was halfassed to say the least but I won't complain to much because at least the skill serves a purpose instead of doing nothing at all.

Actually Herding has always been pretty much as it is now, except that now you can herd creatures across server lines and in/out of dungeons. (herd them onto yourself and enter/exit)

But I agree with the idea that they need to do something with the other skills.

I would love to see one of them replaced with transmutation. Allow us to convert the graphic of items - so if you have a nice leather outfit but some really great gloves that happen to be plate.. transmute them into leather gloves of the same properties. (would have to add a NonMage property I guess)

The problem with Bonsai is, they are small and not very useful as deco and I do not like Bonsai plants at all, would never treat a plant like that or own one irl.

Definitely part of the problem with them.
I'm hopeing the new plants have at least Some that are good deco, since they won't serve any other purpose for most of us.

Some obviously are looking forward to the "surprise" factor, and I'm eager to see what they are myself. But after growing one and setting it to deco mode, I won't have any reason to ever want that kind again unless it is a really good looking piece (like hedges).
Lilly pads will be nice (and I almost Know they're in this set ) but since we can't place items on water tiles, their use will be very limited.

What I've never figured out is why they used the ugly little 2bird statuette form for bonsai, when they had more bonsai-looking plants in the client art.

 

[Fizzleton]

Really, who after 11 years does not have a single char to hunt with?

That's not the point. And nobody is asking for a pseudo-warrior beefed up with some braces and rings. Question is simply, if the diversity of play-styles is still on the table of the devs. Since it is the easiest (?? sry, german!) way to add some loot to the loot-table of "Monsters" (hehe, I remember Sesame-street each time I read this word. Get your sword and kill Oscar the Grouch for some seeds!).

We had lots of posts stating that the "explorer" type of adventurer is not supported any more, and that also treasure chests are not sexy atm. Also thieves are poor fellows, and pirates always have been (*smiles at Mr. Seadog*). So if u implement new content, you should ask yourself if u should go mainstream (monster bashing) again, or if you strengthen different approaches to the game.

 

[Barrakketh]

The main point to my original post was to point out WHY we have lost so many players over the past two years. I am sure that each and every one of you must have had at least one or two friends leave our world.

UO used to offer a wide range of options for entertainment for a variety of play styles. Entire communities existed that were player run which would then give additional activities for players. UO as it stands today has regressed to a fighter only type of game or at least fighter only getting the items needed to do other stuff.

The community has degenerated thats for sure.

This may be on topic but if I get your point it could be summed up into a statement made by many many players that left soon after AoS came out.

" Before AoS players needed each other , smiths , tailors , carpenters , PvM and PvP , now no one needs anyone , so many people say they no longer feel needed "

This is what has happened to the UO we used to know. A game like UO cant succeed if the players in it arent filling a role in the world.

 

[Eslake]

"Before AoS players needed each other."

WOW! I didn't even know there Was a limit on post size

I just spent half an hour going over the history of UO in regards to the degredation of inter-player dependance and community.


The short version.
It was failing already when T2A came out. Many of the player-towns had already been abandoned, and players had characters able to defend(and provide for) themselves, so they didn't "Need" others so much.

T2A also lead to the rampant PKing that forced them to introduce Trammel.

Trammel actually brought back community for a while. Those tens of thousands of new players caused the creation of numerous newbie-help guilds and started new RP groups and the like.

It was Power Hour that really sent it down hill. Suddenly everyone could make their own smith in a week, so why buy weapons/armor or donate for repairs? They could 7x a tank mage or dexxer in a couple of months - so no monster was a threat for long.

At about the same time Smithy BODs were introduced, putting the final nail in the coffin of those few remaining Real smiths. Almost instantly there were 4 smiths for every paying account. No one ever needed repairs or to purchase armor/weapons.
Not a year later, Tailor BODs finished the other half of the crafting world off.

So before AoS, here we were with characters to do everything we needed, and able to retemplate a character completely in a short period of time. So who needed anyone else for anything?

After the disappointment of UO2, they hyped a new client, and we were all thrilled, and then they slapped us with Third Dawn. *some are still nursing injuries*

LBR followed in '02, and I rather liked having smarter monsters, but they made all the buildings look dirty. (and that annoying wyrm honking still drives me up the wall!)

AoS followed almost exactly a year later, and everyone threw a fit.
Properties.. numbers all over everything. What was once the best of the best, was now unfit for an orc, and the last 3 real blacksmiths and tailors were slaughtered and used for taxidermy practice.


So AoS was just a little nudge on the knife that had been cutting into player interraction since '98. Nothing they do now can really injure it any further, since there is virtually none now.

Players don't need each other to fight anything, they just make a sampire and figure out how to kill anything in the game with a little practice.

They don't need each other for items, because the best items come from the monsters they can kill (or from duped runics, but I won't go into that whole mess).

They don't need each other for crafting (since crafting is useless for anyting but BODs) or repairs, since they can buy repair tickets from a vendor without ever meeting the crafter who made them.

There is someone on these forums who digs out the "Go to a free online-chat" card any time someone says anything that remotely relates to soloing or self sufficient game play. But that is almost what UO has become.
A single player game with internet chat built in.


Nearly every addition to or change of the game is in favor of power gamers and warriors. Because of that, the population of the game gradually becomes skewed to those types (just look at the responces to the plant threads, they act as if the only thing the devs should be working on are more warrior toys).
Those aren't the social aspect of UO. Powergamers don't take the time to chit chat or go on a community hunt. They are too busy getting the optimum skill/second or the most gold/hour or farming the highest artifacts they can.

For players to ever really depend on each other again would require sweeping changes to both the game itself and the way the Dev team views it. They would have to completely change the direction they have been taking it for the past 10 years.

But sadly that is not likely to ever happen.

 

[Sarphus]

I wasn't going to bother replying to this thread since it's one of about a million threads on the exact same topic (disguised as a different complaint), but it isn't going away.

I think it's ASININE for someone to quit UO over the addition of content.

Ok, so you've been happily growing plants for 5+ yrs and then they add more plants for you to grow. Rather than being happy about it, you're like "WTF!!! These really cool plants don't cross polinate!"

You should be happy you're getting content.

Gardening is a minigame... hell, it doesn't even require any skills (though it requires resources produced by alchemist). I don't hear the detectives crying because this last event arc didn't require people to actually have skill in forensic eval and that's an actual skill!

I think this whole gardening thing is being blown WAY out of proportion. People are getting all upset over the content being added when the devs didn't have to add anything in the first place. They threw you a bone and you basically said "this bone isn't big enough!"

It annoys me how ungrateful people in the UO community can be.

 

[Eslake]

I think it's ASININE for someone to quit UO over the addition of content.

Did someone say they were quitting? I missed that.

If you mean the OP, he didn't say that, and wasn't talking about the new content itself.
It was about the fact that they have been focussed on PvP and PvM nearly to the exclusion of all other aspects of the game for a long time now.
Crafting got a couple of bones in the past few expansions, but generally they care only about killing.. players or monsters, and continue to ignore the fact that a Role Playing game requires content for other roles as well.

Gardening is a minigame... hell, it doesn't even require any skills (though it requires resources produced by alchemist). I don't hear the detectives crying because this last event arc didn't require people to actually have skill in forensic eval and that's an actual skill!

Everything in the game is a minigame. Just because something doesn't use skill does not make it somehow less important than something else.

The most important reason UO is still alive today is that there is so much you can do. If you want to be a shepherd, you can, if you want to kill demons with a pet dragon, you can.
But they have been letting everything that does not involve some form of combat go to pot.

 

[Fizzleton]

You should be happy you're getting content.

It annoys me how ungrateful people in the UO community can be.

Aha. So no customer has the right to say "I like it, because..." or "I don't like it, because...", since we have to be grateful to anything that comes the way.

*laughs heavily*

Anything is subject to any discussion, anytime. We don't live in China where Yellow-dressed Cheerleaders are placed on the tribunes instead of real supporters. That content is nice, no question, but it should be allowed to discuss this new content in broader terms of what the state of the game is and what we want this game to be. If you are happy with anything that is given to ya, thats fine, then u are really the type of customer each company is dreaming about.

regards

 

[hawkeye_pike]

The amount of whining players is positively proportional to how much you pamper them. Many players whine if they see any kind of bonus in it for them. It will simply be another way for them to achieve their goals. If you do not pamper the players and let them know that whining will not help them, the whining will subside.

Also, it is not possible to run a scenario or award player actions without other players crying favoritism.

 

[Sarphus]

"Before AoS players needed each other."

...
So AoS was just a little nudge on the knife that had been cutting into player interraction since '98. Nothing they do now can really injure it any further, since there is virtually none now.

Players don't need each other to fight anything, they just make a sampire and figure out how to kill anything in the game with a little practice.

They don't need each other for items, because the best items come from the monsters they can kill (or from duped runics, but I won't go into that whole mess).

They don't need each other for crafting (since crafting is useless for anyting but BODs) or repairs, since they can buy repair tickets from a vendor without ever meeting the crafter who made them.

There is someone on these forums who digs out the "Go to a free online-chat" card any time someone says anything that remotely relates to soloing or self sufficient game play. But that is almost what UO has become.
A single player game with internet chat built in.


Nearly every addition to or change of the game is in favor of power gamers and warriors. Because of that, the population of the game gradually becomes skewed to those types (just look at the responces to the plant threads, they act as if the only thing the devs should be working on are more warrior toys).
Those aren't the social aspect of UO. Powergamers don't take the time to chit chat or go on a community hunt. They are too busy getting the optimum skill/second or the most gold/hour or farming the highest artifacts they can.

For players to ever really depend on each other again would require sweeping changes to both the game itself and the way the Dev team views it. They would have to completely change the direction they have been taking it for the past 10 years.

But sadly that is not likely to ever happen.

I don't understand your complaint. Having seeds drop on monsters encourages player interactivity because gardeners may need to buy seeds from other people (something a lot of gardeners are complaining about).

Also, I don't think the recent content additions (last 3 yrs) have been consistant with your point. You say all content additions in UO favor powergamers, but I don't think you're flat wrong. I think the content additions recently have been balanced to create something for everyone (including power gamers). Here's a list of things that don't cater to powergamer-solo anything types just off the top of my head.

* We had lots of house deco added
* We had easy collection quests that ANYONE could do
* Doom drops have become more friendly to casual players
* Event content has been added for people who like storyline
* Peerless have been buffed up to make them more challenging to solo
* Collections were added with points awarded for non-combat garbage
* AI changes to event monsters to make them more difficult to solo
* blackrock from mining used to destroy event monsters

well anyway... I disagree with you

 

[Eslake]

* We had lots of house deco added
* We had easy collection quests that ANYONE could do
* Doom drops have become more friendly to casual players
* Event content has been added for people who like storyline
* Peerless have been buffed up to make them more challenging to solo
* Collections were added with points awarded for non-combat garbage
* AI changes to event monsters to make them more difficult to solo
* blackrock from mining used to destroy event monsters

well anyway... I disagree with you

Deco yes.
Collections somewhat (most of the rewards are combat oriented)
Doom is for combat.
Event content is all combat focussed.
Peerless require combat.
AI changes to monsters is combat-centric.
Blackrock yes.

We can agree to disagree.

It is hard to point out that so much of what they do is combat-centered, because someone invariably comments that "it is because Most of us play for Combat" or similar.
But there is a reason most of those still playing chose that type of play - the game is centered around it in nearly every aspect, so it draws/keeps those who prefer it that way.

Seeds on monsters doesn't encourage player interraction at all.
Those who will be selling seeds won't roaming around talking to people to sell them, they will dump them on a vendor and walk away.
That isn't player interraction.

Player-to-Player dependancy maybe, but not much of that. Most of those who garden DO have characters able to fight for the seeds, it is just not how they prefer to play.

--
I just Re-read your post to be sure what I was responding to.
I missed that you were talking specifically about the Soloing power gamers, rather than the combat-only focus the Devs have been applying.

 

[Sarphus]

A lot of the event content was puzzle oriented. I was able to do the last event piece with brand new characters and I know I wasn't the only one. It doesn't take combat skills to do what I did. The entire detective series was puzzle-oriented, not combat based.

As for the other things I mentioned that are still combat, I was pointing out that the game is becoming less powergamer oriented. I wasn't saying those were not combat-oriented elements. I was saying they were signs that the game is becoming less powergamer oriented and requiring players to work together more.

The other point I was trying to make is that it's asinine to complain about new content when you're still happily enjoying the old content.

Also, just because you can buy seeds in luna doesn't mean you have to. You can always approach a combat person and make a deal with them to have them harvest seeds for you.

Player interaction is a choice and always has been.

It's like with spellweaving... clearly a skill designed to encourage player interaction, but a majority of spellweavers use multiple accounts to buff up their focus. Why? cause players are resistant to forced player interaction.

That's not the devs fault.

 

[Flora Green]

It annoys me how ungrateful people in the UO community can be.

It annoys me how intolerant and disrespectful those of you in disagreement with us can be.

 

[FrejaSP]

Seeds on monsters doesn't encourage player interraction at all.
Those who will be selling seeds won't roaming around talking to people to sell them, they will dump them on a vendor and walk away.
That isn't player interraction.

Not all true

If I buy the seed on a vendor, I won't know from what monsters it is looted unless the vendor owner do ass the monster to the info.

If I know from what monster a bag of seed is looted, I will know the 4 kind of plants it will be after I had grown the first bag.

So with other words, if I want to be sure to get hedge for a customer who had made an order of 20 hedge, I will find a hunter who will hunt the right monster.

Remember 4 groups of monsters, a, b, c and d and 4 groups of plants, 1, 2,3 and 4, so monster group a will always give seed from group 1.

I'm sure there will be interact, even when both seed and plants will be on vendors too.

 

[Sarphus]

It annoys me how intolerant and disrespectful those of you in disagreement with us can be.

Who's being intolerant and disrespectful? I only see that coming from the people who get thrown a bone and throw it back in the devs face...

 

[Flora Green]

I'm sure you do.

 

[Landicine]

The amount of whining players is positively proportional to how much you pamper them. Many players whine if they see any kind of bonus in it for them. It will simply be another way for them to achieve their goals. If you do not pamper the players and let them know that whining will not help them, the whining will subside.

Also, it is not possible to run a scenario or award player actions without other players crying favoritism.

I think you are wrong. There is such variety in people, that someone will whine no matter what the conditions. Tough love won't work on all people. The best you can hope for with a tough-love-you-will-take-what-we-give-you approach to game design is something like learned helplessness:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

Not exactly a good business model. You want people to get fired up about your game, not feel depression and helplessness.

Generalizations like this are pointless to the conversation, though my bit here probably is too.

So here is something on the plants:

Mark Rosewater, head designer for Magic the Gathering, always talks about "knowing who you are designing for" in his column on game design. Certain cards in his game are designed for different types of players (the tournament player obsessed with power, the casual player, the mad scientist), and while it has taken time to develope the tools to design them, it is worth the effort for all games.

The seed and plant system appeals to a certain type of player. Most casual gardeners see it as a means to an end (petals, leaves, thorns, black plants, etc.). Those who are really into gardening see it as an end in itself. They enjoy the actual growing of plants, the collection of seeds, pollination, watering, etc. They enjoy several things (seeds, pollination) that were actually removed from this batch of plants. These plants were not really designed with their desires in mind.

Instead, they were designed for the kill-and-collect type of player. I fall under this type. I killed so many savages for a nearly complete set of masks, and while I think I've used them for roleplay maybe twice, I still have my collection. I like complete sets. I like having something to hunt. I enjoy this type of content.

However, I get a huge amount of content relative to the gardening type people. Evil moonglow's cloaks/threads/planestuff, Magincia rubble, Stranger gems, minor artifacts, major artifacts, Spring cleaning (where I turned in plague beast cores, extra savage masks, and power crystals I collected years ago), and so on and on. Making the hunt life for these seeds shorter in exchange for making them obtainable through gardening would be a good decision.

 

[Moonstar]

I'm sure there will be Some low HP creatures to drop some of the new seeds. something you could just swat at and kill or atleast hire a warrior to kill. That's what they are there for right? so those w/o skill can hire them to fight something for them?
I recently had to kill a bogling with a newb char. no helpful combat skills whatsoever. I hired 2 warriors from in town and together they killed it fairly easily.
if one of the seed bearers is a bird or bunny or soemthing very low like that you'd only need one warrior . if you haven't any strength to knock the thing out yourself.


Also if you're so sure a warrior would just not even pick the seed up .. then hang out in some areas you heard seed carrying monsters are and loot the corpses that get left behind.


there are many means to an end.. being a fighter is just the easiest one.

 

[IRS]

"Long long ago, in a land called UO there was something for everyone to do"

Gardeners long, long ago?

Huhzas?

Maybe my memory is a bit clouded but wtf was there to garden in the beginning of Uo long,long ago? Seeds/gardeners long,long ago?

pancakes about seeds? The demise of the playerbase will be brought about in any small possible way due to seeds(or the lack of?)

*pukes*

ditto

 

[gandolfofaol]

1 - The original seeds came from monsters like boglings. Monsters have to be killed to get the seeds. The bonsai seeds had to be colected from the cold dead corpses of Tokuno mobs. So someone had to kill the monsters to get the seeds then too, no?

2 - If the monsters are too strong for your char to handle, and your fear is that people won't loot and sell them, then you can loot them when the corpse turn public.

3 - It has already been stated that a good portion of the seeds will spawn on easily accessible monsters, could be birds like someone mentioned, or could be low level mobs like mongbats. So using your trusty pack horses to hunt these should be fine.

4 - You probably have an alchemist to make the potions for tending to your plants, yes? If not, you would have a vendor that you buy your potions from. I've heard that there's this purple potion that goes boom. Used by newbies with 0 combat skills to farm cloaks and 25k points from Melissa...

5 - Your normal vendor don't sell explosion pots? No worrie, unlike gardening which requires greater versions of the potions, the lesser versions of explosion which you can buy off NPCs will also suffice.

6 - My crafter has 2 pack horses, I use them to kill sheep after I have sheared their wool. Works wonderfully. I don't even dismount and use my giant beetle as I like to zip around quickly.

7 - To make pentagrams, my carpenter needs to have 75 magery. With 75 magery, I can summon blade spirits. If I slap on some +magery equipment, I can even use EVs and elementals. That's how I got Glorious Lord on my crafter.

8 - Next posts I expect to reply to -
i) Why does my gardener need alchemy?
ii) Why does my carpenter need magery to make pentagrams, tailoring to make looms, blacksmithing to make forges etc?
iii) Why can mages/warriors/tamers also become gardeners? Is it because there isn't a skill called "gardening"? It's not fair, only crafters should be able to become gardners.
iv) Why do I need to hunt for peerless regs?
v) Why can't my pure mage/bard/tamer/warrior play the BOD mini game? Why should it be limited to only crafters?

LMAO that is one of the best posts I've read today.

 

[Amethyst of Napa]

*Heavy Sigh*

This is to clear up one portion of my original post that SOME people seem to have focused on instead of the actual post itself. I am NOT whining but I am trying to bring to someone's attention that focusing on just one playstyle is hurting our overall game.

Nor do I need to hire any hunters to gather seeds for me. In eleven years of playing on multiple accounts how could I not have my Legendary Mage or my Legendary Tamer or my Legendary Bard. In fact I have worked every skill up to gm level or above with the exception of begging which is in the high 90s, herding and a couple of other useless skills.

And many of you may faint at my next statement but, even with my UBER hunter/fighter characters, I personally hate hunting. Running up to a monster and going bash, slash, all kill, or cast, bard; is boring beyond belief and I do it as little as possible. The other playstyles that UO used to offer were so much more rewarding, relaxing, and down right fun. It is really a shame that some of you less than 5 playing year youngsters (notice I did not say newbies) never really got to experience UO as it was originally intended to be. An actual virtual world where friendships were made and valued, where a players imagination could be put to good use for the good of the community.

The problem that I am trying to draw attention to is the fact that everything in the past couple of years has been totally hunter oriented. The last expansion, the one that was supposed to save crafting by introducing recipe scrolls, was a flop for crafters. It required large groups of people to obtain the crafting resources many of the scrolls required. And while a few items finally made their way to a vendor for sale at an unrealistic price, the majority of the "true crafters" were left out in the cold.

Having seeds appear as loot on LOWER monsters does not and would not hurt a thing. Having seeds appear on Twisted Weald monsters is insane and most of the Tokuno Island monsters are no walk in the park either for the average crafter.

Having seeds spawn that you just plop in dirt, water and after growing set to decorative mode does absolutly nothing for the gardeners or the gardening playstyle. A example of that is the bonsi trees. It did not work 3 years ago, why on earth would anyone think a repeat of that would help or excite gardeners.

These wonderous new seeds we are being offered will hold the average players attention for less than a month. Seeds that do find their way to vendors will probably end up being priced in the thousands. After that majority of the seeds will be left on monsters corpses.

As so many have stated above it is the cross polination, the chance of getting the rare white or black plant, the harvesting of seeds and resources that truely uses the gardeners abilities and excites their interests.

Having 15 new seeds spawn at random in clusters of certain monsters yet identified as just a peculiar seed is a waste of everyones time. Telling people to buy off of vendors is NOT going to work. There will be no way to narrow down the possibilites of what you may be buying. I'm sure most gardeners expect to grow 50 or 100 seeds to get the full range of 15 plants, but I for one will not grow THOUSANDS of seeds just to get that last missing plant.

The excuse of it being too difficult to introduce new plants that can be cross pollinated and obtain additional new plants or resources is just another way of saying we didnt want to devote 5 hours time to code this into existance.

These new plants could have been designed to work off only the other new plants. The templet was there already that could have been followed. If a player tried to cross pollinate an unacceptable plant they could have gotten the message "you cannot pollinate from that".

Even if all you could pollinate was the same type plant to each other, it would have given the opportunity to get a rare white or black plant and seeds for the same type plant. There would have been a reason to keep trying to grow the same type plant over and over and over and over. It would give the gardener the ability to accept a special order for a specific type plant and keep the price reasonable instead of a player having to pay 3 million for 6 matching hedge plants or whatever type plant it is we get.

Introducing a "resource" or a rare on a couple of the plants would not have been a huge drain of coding time either. The art work is there for mandrake plants and mandrake root and several other regs. With the majority of players having LRC suits, and not having to purchase regs from vendors, it would not have hurt a thing to be able to grow 8 mandrake root per plant.

I could go on for hours on what could have or should have been done but I wont. It will do no good to point out the obvious or try to appeal to the "powers that be" to expand their goals to include other playstyles.