I'll be brief and to the point. UO has numerous gameplay systems that are more or less fundamentally sound, but which go largely ignored for various reasons. Identifying and correcting the problems with these systems would give UO players access to a great deal more content, meaningful content, for a relatively small expenditure of development resources.
Here are a couple I've identified, and what I recommend. Feel free to comment on my choices or add your own.
High Seas ship combat
Problem: Crafting overhead is substantial, opportunity for profit is limited, and the system in general is needlessly overcomplex relative to what it delivers.
Solution: High Seas crafting should be pared down to the relevant essentials. Cannonballs, powder charges, and that's about it. Junk like ramrods and swabs and so forth can be swept under the rug and forgotten since they don't add any fun or especially choice to the game. What's more, NPC ships should have loot, real loot that people will want. Let's say equivalent to a reasonably high-level treasure map.
Result: Players are more likely to engage in ship combat, since there is much less nuisance and more loot involved. Crafters still have ammunition to craft and sell, and are more likely to have customers to sell to if people are actually using their ships.
Heartwood questing
Problem: Nobody cares about the PVE quests at all, because they reward literal garbage. We have a complete system for randomly generating quests in the game, and it goes almost completely unused. Think about what a waste that is.
Solution: Heartwood PVE quests should no longer drop trash items, but rather different sorts of objects which can be turned in for different values of Community Collections points, depending upon the quest. (For example, musty ancient books for the library, or various artifacts for the museum.) Maybe add some new tougher kill quests, maybe add a couple new prizes to the collections to drive interest, nothing big is required. Hell you could even have Community Collections take nothing BUT these quest objects, and let anyone who wants to be rewarded for scripting 2092390 bucklers go use Clean Up Britannia instead.
Result: Holy crap, for the first time ever UO has a quest system AND a reason to use it. People have a chance to get collection items without scripting, paying a scripter, or spending a million years.
Charybdis
Problem: Charybdis is an incredibly tough boss with a complex summoning ritual, that is horribly underused because all he drops is that nonsense regeneration armor nobody wants. Right now all the effort that went into developing this encounter is mostly wasted.
Solution: Think of something players DO want, and put it on him. (Random idea: items with the same stats as stuff like Conjurer's Garb or Tangle, but different appearances?) Like... duh. I have no idea why this boss has been allowed to sit neglected for years.
Result: Charybdis becomes more of a mainstream thing, and not something guilds do once every six months on a lark.
Now you may or may not like any one of these particular ideas, but the fact is they could have probably done all of this put together for less time and effort than they spend adding any given new system. Because these are nothing but tweaks. Sensible, reasonable, possible tweaks to things that already exist, not pie in the sky.
I'm interested in what others people can think of, and what they would do about them. Remember, whatever changes you propose should be relatively quick and easy to implement.
Here are a couple I've identified, and what I recommend. Feel free to comment on my choices or add your own.
High Seas ship combat
Problem: Crafting overhead is substantial, opportunity for profit is limited, and the system in general is needlessly overcomplex relative to what it delivers.
Solution: High Seas crafting should be pared down to the relevant essentials. Cannonballs, powder charges, and that's about it. Junk like ramrods and swabs and so forth can be swept under the rug and forgotten since they don't add any fun or especially choice to the game. What's more, NPC ships should have loot, real loot that people will want. Let's say equivalent to a reasonably high-level treasure map.
Result: Players are more likely to engage in ship combat, since there is much less nuisance and more loot involved. Crafters still have ammunition to craft and sell, and are more likely to have customers to sell to if people are actually using their ships.
Heartwood questing
Problem: Nobody cares about the PVE quests at all, because they reward literal garbage. We have a complete system for randomly generating quests in the game, and it goes almost completely unused. Think about what a waste that is.
Solution: Heartwood PVE quests should no longer drop trash items, but rather different sorts of objects which can be turned in for different values of Community Collections points, depending upon the quest. (For example, musty ancient books for the library, or various artifacts for the museum.) Maybe add some new tougher kill quests, maybe add a couple new prizes to the collections to drive interest, nothing big is required. Hell you could even have Community Collections take nothing BUT these quest objects, and let anyone who wants to be rewarded for scripting 2092390 bucklers go use Clean Up Britannia instead.
Result: Holy crap, for the first time ever UO has a quest system AND a reason to use it. People have a chance to get collection items without scripting, paying a scripter, or spending a million years.
Charybdis
Problem: Charybdis is an incredibly tough boss with a complex summoning ritual, that is horribly underused because all he drops is that nonsense regeneration armor nobody wants. Right now all the effort that went into developing this encounter is mostly wasted.
Solution: Think of something players DO want, and put it on him. (Random idea: items with the same stats as stuff like Conjurer's Garb or Tangle, but different appearances?) Like... duh. I have no idea why this boss has been allowed to sit neglected for years.
Result: Charybdis becomes more of a mainstream thing, and not something guilds do once every six months on a lark.
Now you may or may not like any one of these particular ideas, but the fact is they could have probably done all of this put together for less time and effort than they spend adding any given new system. Because these are nothing but tweaks. Sensible, reasonable, possible tweaks to things that already exist, not pie in the sky.
I'm interested in what others people can think of, and what they would do about them. Remember, whatever changes you propose should be relatively quick and easy to implement.
