Revitalizing The High Seas... Some Ideas!

[Adol]

Hey all,

Today I was testing various elements of fishing for UOGuide, and as I did so, I thought about the untapped potential for that expansion, and why it's since slowly become less engaging. Here are a few ideas which I think might help encourage people to set sail once more;

Idea 1: A Pirate Hunting Reputation System

At present, the rewards for pirate hunting remain rather pathetic, and the damage done to your ship and the use of cannon firing materials quickly makes it uneconomic. But what if there was both a way to make it exciting in the shorter term, and allow some sense of progression to your activities?

Here's how it could work. Firstly, upon completion of the mission, some of the NPCs at Sea Market will spend the day declaring that "So and So took down Peg Face Pete, the seas are safe once more"; or a notice board at Sea Market is updated to declare their fame... Maybe even have it so randomly when they enter the tavern at the Market, an NPC buys them a drink (speech declaring "Good on ya buddy! This one's on me for taking down that Pirate!", ale spawns in backpack)

Currently, everyone who did damage has the 10k gold divided between them, and gains a reward. Leave that as is, but pinch the Void Pool mechanic to record people's Pirate "Score" for returning Death Certificates and give them points towards that too. Then allow them to buy rewards from Sea Market for their efforts with those points.

As a rough sketch, going from cheapest to most expensive, the reward table could look like this;

1.) A Sash declaring themselves "Pirate Hunter"
2.) A box of cannon firing materials (Charge, Fuse, Fire and Freeze Cannonballs)
3.) A light cannon
4.) A heavy cannon
5.) An Ork Ship Part of your choice (this eliminates the risk of people still not bothering and allows you to fill in gaps in your set)
6.) Custom, permanent paint of your choice for the ship; make it different from the Captain's Bundle colours to avoid ruining their values.
7.) Custom cannon; there's already unused artwork in the client for a cannon, allow people to unlock a few more designs for more customization.
8.) Custom flag for your Main Mast, declaring you loved by Sea Market... or the realm. Ankh Flag, Fish Flag, give the person a choice of designs...

This is all a bit goody goody though isn't it? Let's give the option to those who roleplay negative or pirate characters as well.... So mirror the system in Buccaneers Den for those who hunt the blue NPC ships instead. Sea scallywags get beer bought for them in that city instead. Change the "Pirate Hunter" sash to "Yaaargh We Loot The Seas" or something fun, and the flag to the various historical Skull And Crossbones. If there's time, perhaps design some more scurvy dog style artwork for pirate looking cannon and paint and slot them into 6 and 7 too.
If there's REALLY commitment to the idea, add a final reward of a unique new ship into a slot 9... a pirate galleon and a pirate hunting frigate!

So that's the first idea... do discuss thoughts!

Idea 2: Fish Hunting Lodges

Testing whether aquarium fish can be mounted (they can't) and discovering that you can only move the multi-tile fish trophies middle' parts, which breaks the trophy, I realised it's impossible to display all the mountable fish in any reasonable size house. And sadly the google docs here on Stratics seem to have stop being updated, so people have no real impetus to challenge their fish sizes. But what if there was a place dedicated to showing off the shards biggest fishes?

Doing it on the cheap; The EMs on each shard are allowed to design and place one extra house, dedicated to mounting Fish Trophies. Everyone submits their biggest catch of each type, and they display the best for public awe and bowing before. The main problems with that method is that it won't be as widely known as something the players can find for themselves like the new Casino, and returning the previous record holder when it's surpassed, because I suspect people will want their personal achievements for their own homes even if it's no longer the best...

Doing it the nicer way; Personally, I'd love to see a new permanent "Ship" added to the map, near Sea Market, dedicated to the art of fishing. Code it so there's a deposit box like Moonglow Zoo where people can drop the fish (or fishing trophy) in, and it's automatically added to a fixed spot on the ships walls somewhere if it's the largest. And they can right click the box and "Reclaim Fish" for those that have since been beaten. That may be tricky to code, but tie it to the account to get around that?

If a boat is too much to code, or can't be done in a visually appealing way, extend Sea Market or put individual poles up around it, with each Fish mounted on the pole.

And why stop there? For those creatures already with trophies craftable (Bears, hinds etc), switch it from targetting the body when making a trophy, to a head dropping on the corpse which is then treated like a mountable fish, with the weight and date included, and make a hunting lodge somewhere on the mainland that does the same thing... Yew maybe?

Idea 3: Fix The Flappin' Fishin' Rewards

Because... No. Just... NO.

 

[SlobberKnocker]

for the life of me i cannot understand why they didnt introduce a water based champ spawn that takes the use of the cannon ships to complete. especially after they did a great job of making the ships so much easier to steer. this was a no brianer in my opinion.

rig the ships that you need at least 4 players to operate the cannons efficiently enough to advance the spawn which fosters group involvement. make the rewards desireable. chance for a random creature ridable mount say? or something along those lines. 5 point stat increase. 120 tinker or carpenty. conjurors garb in the form of a jin boori. high mod pimp hat...

this would be a boon to crafters as people would need more cannon shot and fuse cords. etc...
introduce a new line of craftables that can only be used to repair ships... treated wood, high quality sail cloth, anchors, rope, tar, etc.

i just think they left so much off the table on the high seas expansion.

 

[Adol]

for the life of me i cannot understand why they didnt introduce a water based champ spawn that takes the use of the cannon ships to complete. especially after they did a great job of making the ships so much easier to steer. this was a no brianer in my opinion.

I think Osiredon was supposed to be that, but he runs around so often it's impossible to keep cannon lined up on him ... People just prefer to summon him near shore now and fight that way. And Charbydis is so stupidly hard to get bait for and successfully pull, so hardly anyone's ever been able to experience that, and discover it is pretty close to your idea as he appears randomly in the deep sea (or in Britain Bay if you summon on that sub server) and will fight your ship as well as you.

 

[SlobberKnocker]

i dont see how hard it would be to put an altar out in the water and tie the spawn around it. give bards a role by giving them the ability to provoke spawn to attack a ship in the attempts to disable it. if you disable the ship and kill everyone on it, the ship transports to a dry dock where rezzes and repairs can be made. you could have the boss do a tsunami attack that freezes the boat. you could make it that the brit ship u have to buy does more damage. maybe have the ability to shanghai npc's from shore to allow the ship to move faster. theres just so much meat on this bone.

theres just so many possibilites. one thing that is stupid is killing the boss along the shore line and taking the spawn he gives off into town to be guardwacked which is what most do.

 

[Logrus]

I think his eels no longer get Gwhacked.

Cant remember but I think Cannons it Osiredon for 1-3K or seomthing like that

 

[Radugast]

Some good ideas, Adol. I think we all can agree that High Seas could be much better.

Along the same lines, here is a link to the recent discussion on the fishing boards [Fishing] - Ideas for fishing | Stratics: A Career Path in Gaming

 

[Minerva Foxglove]

Oh dear... High Seas has such potential ..consept great.. but nothing is worth doing when you once have tested it out. All loot is pathetic ..bosses and pirates. All materials and" tools" needed are too expensive and too slow to make and complicated to make it fun. Cannon stuff ..noone makes it anymore that I know. Was fun to use cannons but not to do the preparations, and way to costly . Baits doesnt make you get anything , just a waste. Charybdis baits ..close to non existant. Pies cant be sold with any profit, not the slightest, as the ingreadients you need to buy cost 1000 gp. should be 3 gp . Even with fisher suit you can fail to get charybdis from that 5 charges bait. The fight is great , just very few have a chance to be part of it and only the fisher get a drop . People lose their Britannian ships without knowing why. Lava traps doesnt work and the tropies ..most of them , doesntlook great. The books you get from fine orders doesnt even give turn in points. Whats the point to do the quests for the scroll if nothing is worth doing? And talk about lobster trapping.....

If there is something I dont like I normally just skip it , there are other things to do. But this could be so fun and it irks me there is no reason to go on with it. I have a fisher vendor with pies that I offer for less than they cost to make but they dont sell anyways. Mib fishing is good as it is, but there isnt much HS stuff that sells anymore. I had 3 oracles in the past but just 2 baits. No use to sell the spare oracle I have, when there are no baits.

PS. Corgul .. no complaints there

 

[SlobberKnocker]

well. i think we all agree that after the upcoming bug publish the dev's take a serious look at a high seas tweak. There is just so much there to do.

what's funny is i started playing UO 6 years ago because it had fishing in it, yet my fishing skill sits on a stone for years now.

 

[Kyronix]

These are some really great suggestions. If some High Seas tweaks get on the schedule my stealing skill will certainly be increasing

 

[SlobberKnocker]

why not introduce great white sharks to the mix. have the ability to skin them that yields a new type of leather with high cold resists.
Maybe a shark tooth necklace that can be modable by tinkerers.

my point is if this is ever done, it should be in the guise of making as many character types as viable as possible.

 

[Edward Striker]

High seas adventure
high seas adventure was a good plan but poorly executed. The potential for this to be really fun was lost on the developers, I don't think they really thought the whole thing through. I agree with what everybody else is posting here that the effort put forth does not equal to what is gained.

If you look at actual pirates and what they went to sea for the number one reason was gold, yet as we go to sea and fight pirates the one thing we do not see, gold. If you look at a standard ship, the Tokuno ship, total five guns. If you have one player per gun, at five, then a navigator/helmsman, that makes six. Then if you wish support crew such as mages and archers that could bring the crew up to 10. Using these numbers the gold gain from going after pirate ship would mean each member of the crew got one thousand gold. It hardly makes it worth doing the job. When you add in the cost of ammunition and supplies keep the ship running it far outweighs was received by taking out a pirate.

Some the treasure items are kind of fun especially for a role-play guild. Some of the basic items that should be carried on pirate ships should be the following:

1.Gold
2.Combat supplies; such as cannonballs grapeshot charges ramrod's swabs match cord fuses and possibly specialty items.
3.Repair supplies; such as cloth lumber and ingots
4.Cargo; this can be of any resource material that is used for magic imbuing crafting or specially items such as liquors or other rewards.

This would allow for more exciting times engaging pirates. Also damages should only incur on cannons that have been damage from enemy fire and not by firing the canons themselves especially since the rate of decay is based off of each shot. If you notice cannons were strong and would last a long time. This is been proven through history with the finding of cannons on the seafloor that are still working order.

Improvements I would like to see with this expansion are as follows:

ammunition holds at each gun station, because the weight of everything needed to fire cannons, most characters cannot carry enough munitions plus the normal items that are in their backpack. You could put one on each side of the ship.

The idea of customizable sails I think is wonderful idea as is flags.

One of the biggest improvements I would like to see has nothing to do with the ships themselves but with homes. I would like to see the homes be able to place floor mounts allowing the placement of cannons. The placement cannons would be the same as the placement of vendors. A private home would not be allowed placement. By placing cannons in a home, the homeowner has opened himself up to attack, taking the same type of damage as a ship. He would have to use stone and boards to repair his home. This would give crafters more to do. This would also allow for people to place homes along the shoreline that can fire upon passing ships and for the ships to return fire and conduct damage. The rule sets for tram ships would apply to the homes as with the rule sets for Fell, when applied to the homes there. This would also make for more interesting PvP. If the rule set idea is undoable because of storage and security issues than homeowners should be given a inbox that must be placed on the outside of the house for items to be placed in for looting rights. And can only be accessed once a certain percentage of damage is done to the house. They can make graphic works similar to that use on the ships, would show damage to walls and such as damage incurred.

 

[Adol]

"I would like to see the homes be able to place floor mounts allowing the placement of cannons."

Or if that was too hard to code, allow the Veteran Reward cannons to be fired like ship cannons at least...

Custom sails instead of flags if that's easier too (as the sails are already mounted)... good ideas.

I like the idea of Sharks, we don't have those and they were a classic Ultima staple... perhaps have them summoned when throwing Fish Bait (or even cut up Fish Steaks... fish chum made by cooks?) into the sea?

 

[Kyronix]

"I would like to see the homes be able to place floor mounts allowing the placement of cannons."

Or if that was too hard to code, allow the Veteran Reward cannons to be fired like ship cannons at least...

Custom sails instead of flags if that's easier too (as the sails are already mounted)... good ideas.

I like the idea of Sharks, we don't have those and they were a classic Ultima staple... perhaps have them summoned when throwing Fish Bait (or even cut up Fish Steaks... fish chum made by cooks?) into the sea?

We've talked about custom flags and custom banners before, one issue is the policing of the content of these flags and keeping the images appropriate.

Ship Cannons on Houses is probably unlikely given that you can't blow someone's house up and force your way inside to slay and loot them (like you can on a ship).

Sharks...I'm with you there - the more sea creatures the better!

 

[gunneroforgin]

I would happy with a higher chance to trap the higher end lobsters and crab. It takes too long to fish up 20 named lobsters and crabs to make my quest. I would like the big fish trophy fixed. I have one at 198 stone I would like to make into a trophy.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

We've talked about custom flags and custom banners before, one issue is the policing of the content of these flags and keeping the images appropriate.

Sharks...I'm with you there - the more sea creatures the better!

Love the shark idea.

Can understand the possible issues on the flags/sails/banners. Maybe not a totally custom deal would work. Something like the housing customizing mode. Different color patterns, styles etc. Just somethin to kick around.

 

[Leodegan]

Ok so i might be the only person who stands up for sharks but i personally dont want these added to the game especially as a mob, think they got enough stigma in RL without them being added into UO purely for the purpose of culling and skinning. If you want to add them then while we are at it lets put whales in and put the special leather/teeth on them and dolphins, see how many people are happy about that. After all Great Whites are also on the endangered list theyre just not as cute. Reckons theres still plenty of mythical water creatures we havent got yet that we could have instead really.. or even just giving a better diversity of the serpents (which lets face it if they didnt have MiBs they would just be a huge waste of time).

I had thought of a couple of things to add as well, i figured that as with on-land you get lost items that give Honesty, why not have this with fishing? I for one would be quite happy to return somebodies boots I figured they could be fished up normally or inside sunken treasure chests.

Lava traps do not work, havent tested them for a while but every time i throw them into lava i get "the fish dont seem to be biting there" which is a tad irritating. the hooks work fine just the traps. speaking of lava fishing, find a use for the lava rocks, even if its just clean up points.

I think it might be worth considering making certain fish easier to catch in certain seas.... I keep everything i catch and am constantly doing the quests but i find that some fish are more popular than others on orders for example if i go into my fish box i currently have 351 Gray Snapper (cant remember the last time i got an order for these) and 13 Shad, so i figured if certain areas had increased rates for specific fish then saves a lot of time trying to catch the one that seems to be on every order then when i need other fish i sail over to where they spawn best.

Would love to see a reputation system for pirate bounty as i totally agree the current reward is outwieghed by the effort/repair costs involved.

ps. PLEASE LET ME PUT A BIN ON MY BOAT. heheh thanks

 

[Edward Striker]

Love the shark idea.

Can understand the possible issues on the flags/sails/banners. Maybe not a totally custom deal would work. Something like the housing customizing mode. Different color patterns, styles etc. Just somethin to kick around.

on the flag sail banner thing, what they could do is have custom artwork in deed forms such as the city banners you could take them and add them to your ship sails like you do the harpsichord and that would be what your sale would look like. So besides the city banners they could come up with other artwork.

 

[Edward Striker]

We've talked about custom flags and custom banners before, one issue is the policing of the content of these flags and keeping the images appropriate.

Ship Cannons on Houses is probably unlikely given that you can't blow someone's house up and force your way inside to slay and loot them (like you can on a ship).

Sharks...I'm with you there - the more sea creatures the better!

That's why I was saying if you can't get into someone's home one of the things they could place on the outside of the house is a loot box and that's it you take whatever they had in it

 

[Sauteed Onion]

I ranted and raved on the High seas things some months ago, and most of what I suggested probably would be way too insane to think about putting in the game, but I will say fishing has gotten stale and could use some tweaking; baits etc need to stop sucking, new fish types could be implemented, expand on the varieties of fish trophies, make aquariums prettier perhaps by adding some animated fish floating around on them (I'm a cat, I like fish), make the fish pies easier and more intuitive to make, pirate hunting is HELLA fun; but extremely not worth it both in times of monetary investment and time sinkage.

Also, I shouldn't have to take my flippin cannons down to drydock my boat. I can understand having to clean out the cargo hold to prevent massive abuse of storage; but let's say go to dry dock your pirate ship for whatver reason. You got to take the ammo out, the fuse, redeed the cannon, several times over just to drydock your boat. And that's assuming you haven't forgotten to clean your cargo hold out. Then when you get to a spot you want to replace your boat, you get the nice little chore of redeeding all that stuff, refusing it, priming, loading OH JOY! And while this doesn't seem like such a hassle reading it, rest assured, it comes across as needlessly frustrating to the average player and is another punch in the testees of Britannias sea faring folk! ARRRRrrrrr!

 

[Viquire]

I ranted and raved on the High seas things some months ago, and most of what I suggested probably would be way too insane to think about putting in the game, but I will say fishing has gotten stale and could use some tweaking; baits etc need to stop sucking, new fish types could be implemented, expand on the varieties of fish trophies, make aquariums prettier perhaps by adding some animated fish floating around on them (I'm a cat, I like fish), make the fish pies easier and more intuitive to make, pirate hunting is HELLA fun; but extremely not worth it both in times of monetary investment and time sinkage.

Also, I shouldn't have to take my flippin cannons down to drydock my boat. I can understand having to clean out the cargo hold to prevent massive abuse of storage; but let's say go to dry dock your pirate ship for whatver reason. You got to take the ammo out, the fuse, redeed the cannon, several times over just to drydock your boat. And that's assuming you haven't forgotten to clean your cargo hold out. Then when you get to a spot you want to replace your boat, you get the nice little chore of redeeding all that stuff, refusing it, priming, loading OH JOY! And while this doesn't seem like such a hassle reading it, rest assured, it comes across as needlessly frustrating to the average player and is another punch in the testees of Britannias sea faring folk! ARRRRrrrrr!

We used to have harbor masters, but when you had them park your boat the boat stayed in game. I wonder if anyone has looked at having boats with empty holds get stabled, but through a different NPC. I could be tempted back to the seas if something like that was the case.

 

[swroberts]

If you want the High Seas revitalized, it is time to open up this expansion to the entire community for free. I love the High Seas, but don't play it that often because 2/3's of my guild can't get on the ship.
If you don't fish or treasure hunt, there is no real reason to purchase the upgrade. The Bosses and their drops just suck ). Unfortunatelty, OSI ignored the oceans so long, players learned to easily live without, and the thought process now is, didn't miss it then and won't miss it now. If they really want to sell this expansion, they need to add some drops that unbalance the game. Something you have to have...like the +5 stats scroll, some conjurers garb like robe, a PVP free full champion spawn area....something you can live without but really don't want to. Or just give it us for free.

 

[Adol]

[quote

I ranted and raved on the High seas things some months ago, and most of what I suggested probably would be way too insane to think about putting in the game, but I will say fishing has gotten stale and could use some tweaking; baits etc need to stop sucking, new fish types could be implemented, expand on the varieties of fish trophies, make aquariums prettier perhaps by adding some animated fish floating around on them (I'm a cat, I like fish), make the fish pies easier and more intuitive to make, pirate hunting is HELLA fun; but extremely not worth it both in times of monetary investment and time sinkage.

Also, I shouldn't have to take my flippin cannons down to drydock my boat. I can understand having to clean out the cargo hold to prevent massive abuse of storage; but let's say go to dry dock your pirate ship for whatver reason. You got to take the ammo out, the fuse, redeed the cannon, several times over just to drydock your boat. And that's assuming you haven't forgotten to clean your cargo hold out. Then when you get to a spot you want to replace your boat, you get the nice little chore of redeeding all that stuff, refusing it, priming, loading OH JOY! And while this doesn't seem like such a hassle reading it, rest assured, it comes across as needlessly frustrating to the average player and is another punch in the testees of Britannias sea faring folk! ARRRRrrrrr!

Regarding the aquarium, yes it would be lovely to see more detail in it; it's possible to make it funkier for now though by placing an item first, raising it above the aquarium, targetting the deed below it, and then lowering the item inside; I've got a blue boat in mine now for the fishies to swim around, and a Mannequin trying to catch the fishies...

As for the ships, they CAN be dry docked with cannon, and the ammo etc will be remembered when you replace it; they just can't be dry docked with any item in the hold, or lying loose on the deck (so a fish on the floor will stop it dry docking, but the cannon won't). I'm carrying my boat now in fact, cannon included!

Regarding sails again; tying the sail to City Reputation would be a great idea for a a further point to that; at the level you can buy a deed you should be able to buy the same design for that deed in the form of a sail or a flag or a flag made of the same deed hung from the mast if you're lazy Custom flags I was thinking more from a pre-selection of designs to avoid the SS Penis too...

One other way to maybe increase interest, and make Fishing quests more useful (if the loot table won't be looked at, ahem) is to give more reason to sail from port to port at the same time; turn the other NPCs on the docks into concerned citizens looking to hire cargo space on your ship; "Dear Captain, please take this box of dates/love letter to my soulmate/hold full of tribbles to Skara Brae and I shall reward thee with gold!" If there was an NPC waiting on the docks you would have to sail there, but as it's voluntary those after just turning in the fish could just cross the server line as they do now before handing in... if it was only programmable the same way (or it's just much easier to use a duplicate box system) leave the rewards low to avoid inflating the benefits too much, but it would take the sting out of yet another 100 fish bait at least, and add some much needed flavour...

 

[Sauteed Onion]

[quote


Regarding the aquarium, yes it would be lovely to see more detail in it; it's possible to make it funkier for now though by placing an item first, raising it above the aquarium, targetting the deed below it, and then lowering the item inside; I've got a blue boat in mine now for the fishies to swim around, and a Mannequin trying to catch the fishies...

As for the ships, they CAN be dry docked with cannon, and the ammo etc will be remembered when you replace it; they just can't be dry docked with any item in the hold, or lying loose on the deck (so a fish on the floor will stop it dry docking, but the cannon won't). I'm carrying my boat now in fact, cannon included!

Wow, I haven't messed with my boat with cannons on it in a while, but last I did try the stupid tiller man was like "You can't dock your ship with a cluttered deck matey" or some similar wildness. And the cannons and ammo were the only thing on the boat at the time. I'll have to kill more pirates today I suppose. harharhar!!

If you want the High Seas revitalized, it is time to open up this expansion to the entire community for free. I love the High Seas, but don't play it that often because 2/3's of my guild can't get on the ship.
If you don't fish or treasure hunt, there is no real reason to purchase the upgrade. The Bosses and their drops just suck ). Unfortunatelty, OSI ignored the oceans so long, players learned to easily live without, and the thought process now is, didn't miss it then and won't miss it now. If they really want to sell this expansion, they need to add some drops that unbalance the game. Something you have to have...like the +5 stats scroll, some conjurers garb like robe, a PVP free full champion spawn area....something you can live without but really don't want to. Or just give it us for free.

I don't think game imbalance is required to push High Seas; but I do think it's about time they include this with the purchase of a new account or apply to all existing accounts, or sheesh.. both. And I REALLY wish they'd add a High Seas champ consisting of killing waves of pirates (would require some revisions of ammo and black powder making, fuse making or just remain the way it is so as to exclude like 80% of people who don't make their own ammo stuffs) that exists in both tram and fel facets with fel only rewards in fel that also include what would be available in Trammel. And maybe not just powerscrolls; maybe cannons that do extra % damage to maps or MiB's that lead to a chest with some really tasty treats in.. perhaps a mish mash of 120 powerscrolls and high end scrolls of transcendence or alacrity's (which those are getting kinda pointless and redundant anyhow) to just straight up major chunk of gold or something that a pirate champ would wanted to have stashed dearly. I might go necro a post I made about things I'd like to see in High seas, just to see what other garbage I puked up! Meow.

 

[popps]

The trading fish/crustaceans chest.

I would love to see a new item, a special container specifically designed for named fish/crustaceans (basically those needed for fishing quests).

This new "fishing chest" would hold great or even unlimited capacity of fish/crustaceans when locked in a home and its specialty would be that by placing named fish/crustaceans inside the chest, characters would "earn" points that would be usable towards pulling fish/crustaceans "out" of the chest. By right clicking the chest a legenda would pop up stating what the points for each named fish/crustacean are, so that the player would know what is the trade ratio between what is put in and what pulled out.

Why the need for this special chest ? To avoid that players might take out more fish/crustaceans than they may put into the chest. The points could be set by only the owner of the House, not the co-owner, to avoid misunderstanding or problems.

This special chest could be a cool Veteran reward, a craftable, or a new reward from fishing Quests.

I think it would be a convenient and handy addition to fishing and fishmonger quests.

 

[The Mule]

Make the fish suit work.
Make bait work.
Redo the quest system so that my 6 line 20 crab/lobster/dungeon fish doesn't give 100 Yellow barracuda bait.