Spock's Beard tells the developers what to do because he's awesome and knows everything.

[Spock's Beard]

These are my ideas. If you disagree with them then you are wrong, because everything I say is great and I know everything. Except for how to include the word "and" in the title of this thread. Oh well.

Things I can't believe we don't already have:

* A new set of artifacts in Doom, and revamped rewards for old content in general. The amount of viable content available to the average banksitter could be expanded exponentially without requiring much in the way of resources but for some reason they just won't do it. Seriously guys, next time you're about to cook up some new system for dispensing loot, just skip the content part, put the loot in the Doom Gauntlet, and spend the left over time on...

* An interface toggle to display tame dragons as reptalons or something, so we can maybe see WTF is going on at an EM event for once. It's a single menu entry attached to a couple lines of code that change what sprite is called upon, it can't be that hard. Have it leave a players own dragon displayed normally and tamers will probably love it since it means their pet will easily stand out from the pack.

Things you should maybe do differently next time:

* Next time you add a vanity mount that comes in different hues, maybe pick a base mount that doesn't already come in 400 different colors. I wanted to say I hadn't seen one of those new bird mounts yet, then I realized they're rehued hiryus and most of the hues are some kind of green or brown. I don't even know all the colors hiryus come in, and green and brown don't exactly stick out. I've probably seen a ton of them and never noticed.

* Wait do those mount statuettes work like grizzled mares or like ethereal mounts? I bet they work like grizzled mares don't they? Weak. Make mounts like this work like ethereals. Whatever drawback you imagine this would have probably doesn't actually matter. Speaking of which, make the grizzled mare work like an ethereal too. The perma swamp dragon can stay like it is since it has an effect on combat.

Things you should do but never will:

* Trammel Despise was the best newbie training location in the game and THE destination for anyone who wasn't just macroing and golem-beating their way to glory. Gutting it and replacing it with that awkward misbegotten minigame was a heinous wound to the game. If you were smart you would revert Despise to what it once was, and dump the loot from it into Doom or something.

Anyway, that's all for now. More later probably.

 

[arkiu]

Your input is frequently...... Logical. However you are probably talking to a wall nowadays.

 

[Lord Frodo]

* Trammel Despise was the best newbie training location in the game and THE destination for anyone who wasn't just macroing and golem-beating their way to glory. Gutting it and replacing it with that awkward misbegotten minigame was a heinous wound to the game. If you were smart you would revert Despise to what it once was, and dump the loot from it into Doom or something.

Anyway, that's all for now. More later probably.

You forgot Shame Tram

 

[MalagAste]

Your input is frequently...... Logical. However you are probably talking to a wall nowadays.

Yes this... remember we are now paying to play Mesanna's free shard. If you can't convince her it's good forget it not happening... Or is it Sony now. Who knows.

Anyway I amazingly agree with a majority of what you said... especially about Despise... of course I told them early on when they were talking about revamping something anyway I told them specifically to not mess up that particular dungeon.

I will say though that most who want to actually hit stuff and work on their skills know where to go to do so. I often suggest to new and returning players that they try the deserts outside Tokuno for that where they can find small bands of orcs and Deathwatch Beetle Hatchlings... my only "beef" with this area is that the Hatchlings have ZERO gold... why I don't know... but they have ZERO gold so for new and returning players this can be a MAJOR turn off. They are struggling enough trying to get money for things like bandages and the like and it really sucks that the best monsters for them to train with have no gold.... but since they can't go to Despise anymore well... they have to just deal. Sometimes I recommend going to Compassion in Illsh or to fight the lizardmen in Illsh..... but those tend to go paragon then and kill them and finding a healer there can be a challenge.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Except for how to include the word "and" in the title of this thread. Oh well.

Might want to check that again, looks like magical fairies have fixed your thread title so you can remain the flawless king of logic

 

[Spock's Beard]

Your input is frequently...... Logical. However you are probably talking to a wall nowadays.

Nah man, that "rehued vanity mounts" thing was one I lobbied for long before I had this forum account. Wrote them emails and everything. And all the statted clothing that comes out of Shadowguard? That we only had a couple statted clothing items was another thing I know I personally had harped on. And the Blackthorn dungeon alternate versions of stuff? Everyone wanted to look different. Granted their way of getting there wasn't what we expected, but on the whole I think it was a success.

They do get hung up on certain things. (Nobody liked armor refinement @Kyronix and even if they did they hated how it was implemented!) But sometimes they do actually listen.

 

[Tyrath]

Find myself agreeing with you on everything here. Most of all Despise! That was the busiest dungeon for new players and pretty much everyone else as it went from Lizerd men to Titans and Ogre Lords. Whether training up to legendary, mining, farming spined, training pets, training lock picking it was the most used dungeon. Now it is empty of players and an abomination. The joke of a dungeon in New Haven that "Offers the same exciting opportunities as Despise did." is a total sick joke.

 

[BeaIank]

Neo Shame was pretty awesome... till the loot was rolled globally and suddenly a balron that dies in 10 seconds has much better loot than an Unbound EV that takes 2 minutes or so to kill.
And while from time to time I do the new Despise mini game for the chance to get the quivers, I weep the loss of old Despise.
It was a much needed dungeon for training.

 

[Tyrath]

Neo Shame was pretty awesome... till the loot was rolled globally and suddenly a balron that dies in 10 seconds has much better loot than an Unbound EV that takes 2 minutes or so to kill.
And while from time to time I do the new Despise mini game for the chance to get the quivers, I weep the loss of old Despise.
It was a much needed dungeon for training.

Would have made more sense to put the mini game in the New Haven Dungeon and leave despise alone...........

 

[Tyrath]

Seems like they revamp/ruin what people like and enjoy, and leave the stuff no one likes or enjoys alone. While adding content that is marginally interesting at best.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

Another vote here for restoring the old tram shame
EDIT: Sorry, I mean to type Despise - it's the old Despise where I built all my new characters. So starting over, "Another vote here for restoring the old Tram Despise"

 

[Ender]

Another vote here for restoring the old tram shame

Shame is okay, Despise needs to be reverted

 

[BeaIank]

Shame could use a bump in the loot quality, though, to make it more worthwhile to visit it again.
Everything there takes forever to kill.

Despise needs to go back to normal.
Give the Andros drops to Covetous Level 3 and 4 and to Cora like was done in Siege.
But also give us a peerless key to spawn Cora, because her spawn is really broken.
Too many times I went to fight her only for her to be nowhere to be seen and didn't spawn after one hour and a half I got there.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

Shame is okay, Despise needs to be reverted

You're right - I meant to type Despise (!) - I'm editing my post to correct

 

[Dot_Warner]

Despise is a shame...

 

[Tyrath]

Shame is actually a improvement over what it was Shame and Wrong could both use loot bumps as Bealank suggest. I actually like the Wrong mobs more than the Shame but that is just personal choice.

 

[cobb]

Seems there are no dungeons suitable for new players these days

 

[Tyrath]

Seems there are no dungeons suitable for new players these days

Covetous level 1 and the dazzled harpies are about as close as it gets.

 

[BeaIank]

They don't die as fast nor carry as much gold as Ettins, though. Ettins dropped a very generous 200 gold per kill and died fast.
I made my 1st million killing Ettins back in 2011. They allowed me to afford basic gear to keep playing and got me to stay.

 

[Tyrath]

Harpies are far from ideal The haven dungeon would be almost Noob Friendly if the lizards and els were switched and a they put ettins in the back half around the rope going to the OLS mixing the lizards with the OLs made no sense then and still doesnt. Easy answer do as you suggest and make the mini game like we have it on Siege and revert Despise back to a solid progressive training dungeon. I have to see anyone in the have dungeon other than tamers training GDs on the OLs and higher level fighter working honor and finishing off skills and then only rarely.

 

[BeaIank]

The Haven mines are pathetic and extremely poorly planned.
I definitely wouldn't mind seeing the Despise mini game dropped. It is DARN boring. The Andros fight is one of the most boring fights in the game.
But you can't get those despicable quiver anywhere else, so one has to do them from time to time.

 

[Tyrath]

Now onto the hued bird mounts....... I bought one at the last Siege Auction and in statue form it shall remain as deco. Because it is really as SB said nothing more than a useless Hiryu. Why not make these etheral and the Griz mares and the 16th ponies. As they are they are bank sitting mounts at least ethy they would be useful beyond bank sitting and deco? DO AS SPOCK COMMANDS

 

[arkiu]

UO can be a bit clunky with the relatively newer systems like the Despise mini game - in addition its kind of boring. Maybe someone had suggested this already but why not simply turn it into a champ spawn?

My only suggestion to the devs if they can hear me is to try and keep things simple, and stay true to what made UO great in the first place. Before releasing new content, i would strongly consider revisiting changes/additions made in the last 5-10 years and some beyond that. Things like ARTWORK, loot properties, vendor search, dungeon revamps, artifacts, housing (borg cubes are tack as f and scarred the landscape), skills that became massively useless, VvV, housing decays, bods, way too complex crafting systems, EC (you EC people have zero taste and probably drive Nissan Cubes), UI, modernizing screen resolution! (If they really listen to you Spock help me on this one), neon green poison halberds (wtf??????) - to name a few - should be looked into. Not overhauled, but refined. Hell maybe just release a legacy server.

Or just hire Spock as a consultant. If it means having to let the artist go then so be it.

 

[drcossack]

Shame is actually a improvement over what it was Shame and Wrong could both use loot bumps as Bealank suggest. I actually like the Wrong mobs more than the Shame but that is just personal choice.

Agreed. I did like old Shame, but there were better dungeons for Blood Elementals, which was the major draw. The Shame spots were always camped, even on the first floor. I once went in there many years back to kill some Earth Eles, while I was in HS. It was shortly after server up and I killed some stuff for a bit before I had to leave.

It's fine as it is now though, although getting a Whetstone is slightly annoying - level 3 is a total pain in the ass. Same for Wrong, although I don't go there very often. But it's still weird to me not seeing the Juka in there.

Tram Despise needs to be reverted to how it was though - put the brothers in a dungeon that doesn't get much traffic, or maybe make them a peerless. While Despise wouldn't get the activity it used to, it was still one of the best places to train and get gold while doing it.

 

[Valura]

Oh Spock, you do make me smile. I agree with much of your post and I love your suggested solutions. Well done to you.

I miss Despise as it was, the new set up is just dreadful. It wouldn't be seen by the players as a bad thing if it were to be reverted by our lovely devs. It used to be a super spot for training lower level characters. The new revamped version is unvisitable. What fun can be had there?

I find some parts of Wrong entertaining but others are just confusing but I think maybe that is down to my own inadequacies rather than poor designs. As for Shame, well I like the new Shame monsters a lot, I train and wander there a lot. Some of those deeper level mobs give me a regular shoeing.

Is there scope for some input from players about all of the dungeons? Some are a little long in the tooth but would only need little changes rather than throwing the whole set up out of the window. What would you like to see altered/tweaked? What would be the quick and easy wins for the Broadsword crew?

 

[Spock's Beard]

Okay devs, come on, look at this thread.

You need to revert Despise and dump the arties from it somewhere else. You just do. If it were some other dungeon you slapped that minigame into we could just ignore it, but you literally paved over the game's de facto newbie dungeon. This isn't just some content addition being nitpicked by forum goons, you actively damaged the game with this change.

Like can you just swallow your pride or whatever and revert it? Do we really have to start hammering on this at Meet & Greets while you hem and haw and try to tell us that someone somewhere totally likes it this way and everyone in global chat laughs because we all know that isn't true?

I mean this is Stratics, I could post that I don't like the taste of poo and some crank would come up like "WELL SPOCK I HAPPEN TO LIKE THE TASTE OF FECES SO DON'T SPEAK FOR ME" and yet even here this whole thread has zeroed in on the Despise thing unanimously. So do you listen to feedback or not?

At least put some more ettins in the woods around New Haven. Right now I barely know where to tell returning newbies to go when they're done with skeletons.

 

[THP]

LoGiCal mR SpoCk

 

[Drakelord]

* An interface toggle to display tame dragons as reptalons or something, so we can maybe see WTF is going on at an EM event for once. It's a single menu entry attached to a couple lines of code that change what sprite is called upon, it can't be that hard. Have it leave a players own dragon displayed normally and tamers will probably love it since it means their pet will easily stand out from the pack.

I love this one!

 

[ShriNayne]

Mr. Spock you are awesome! I agree 100% with your logic, Despise was the best place for new players and I have not gone near it since they changed it. Please, please change it back, it will be a great help to anyone making a new character.
What I don't understand is why they did not simply make a NEW dungeon with the layout Despise now has, they could have put it anywhere, why did they have to take away Despise?

 

[Uvtha]

Now onto the hued bird mounts....... I bought one at the last Siege Auction and in statue form it shall remain as deco. Because it is really as SB said nothing more than a useless Hiryu. Why not make these etheral and the Griz mares and the 16th ponies. As they are they are bank sitting mounts at least ethy they would be useful beyond bank sitting and deco? DO AS SPOCK COMMANDS

Non ethereal mounts are exceptionally useless because of how limited stable slots are. There have been a ton of vanity pet additions, and not enough stable slots to compensate. I still haven't heard any reason why there are stable slot limits in the first place.

 

[Drakelord]

Had a returning player on Sonoma one day yell for help in Despise, seems he went there to train up and get some spined leather. Met more then he could handle, had to rescue him and recover the body.

He then ask where he could get spined leather. That was a good question as I never use it anymore myself, all the suits I make for folks are barded. Took him to sleeping dragon, level one was running, explain to him to watch the candles and harvest the leather he needed.

About twenty minutes later I see a yell for help again from him. Seems he failed to watch the candles. Another rescue and recover job completed.

 

[Enziet]

I've just updated my payment info... So my opinion that doesn't matter is this.

Progress the story.

That is all

 

[Tyrath]

Had a returning player on Sonoma one day yell for help in Despise, seems he went there to train up and get some spined leather. Met more then he could handle, had to rescue him and recover the body.

He then ask where he could get spined leather. That was a good question as I never use it anymore myself, all the suits I make for folks are barded. Took him to sleeping dragon, level one was running, explain to him to watch the candles and harvest the leather he needed.

About twenty minutes later I see a yell for help again from him. Seems he failed to watch the candles. Another rescue and recover job completed.

How could I forget the sleeping dragon spawn!!!! It is a good lizerd spawn and not bad for a bit higher levels after the spawn advances to Kappas. The occasional pinky popping in the backpack is nice as well.

There is also the leezerd camp down past the Yomatsu mines on the edge of the homare swamp. 5-6 of them spawn there but it is a slow spawn if you are killing them with any speed at all.

The old despise was just the bomb for training though. Lizard Men until you graduate to ettins until you grad to earth else until you dropped to level 3 for some OL, Cyclopean Warrior and Titan action. Despise would have been perfect for a abyss like advancing spawn with say a Lizard Man, Earth EL., Ettin, Troll, OL, Cyclopean/titan renowned being the final stages. Put the current mini game stuff as drops on the renowned critters with the higher end quivers dropping from a Renowned Titan. That is hard to kill but not a long drawn out boring ass fight that takes a month of Sundays to kill.

 

[Tyrath]

Non ethereal mounts are exceptionally useless because of how limited stable slots are. There have been a ton of vanity pet additions, and not enough stable slots to compensate. I still haven't heard any reason why there are stable slot limits in the first place.

Stable slot even when max with 120 vet, tame and lore are not enough room if you want to keep pets you have had for years and then add the newer pets. Forget trying to keep a stable full of fire beetles, swamp dragons and blue beetles to sell. I have that problem now on my Atlantic tamer and can't get a NM stall to sell them from. Every time I bid on a stall the price goes through the roof to the point of I would lose a small fortune on stall rent to sell 10k-40k utility pets.

Tyrath's solution suggestion there..... Add Pet Vendors that can be placed in houses, with the same vendor fees. The people that keep the NM brokers bid way up and usually empty can still have their multi million gold rentals and status symbols and us poor folk can have a reasonable way to actually sell our pets and NOT LOSE MONEY!

 

[Spock's Beard]

So I'm trying out the Publish 93 Eodon-vs-Myrmidex war thing for the first time.

Oh my god man. I spent from 4 to 5:30pm on a Saturday afternoon down there, on Atlantic, and saw nobody else whatsoever. I tried to solo it and advanced a couple of checkpoints but it just takes FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER.

Completely non-viable. Had to tell the GF we weren't getting into this after all.

Does EVERYTHING in this game need to be some kind of apocalyptic grind?

You need to jazz the mounts up and cut the HP on everything like in half.

 

[drcossack]

So I'm trying out the Publish 93 Eodon-vs-Myrmidex war thing for the first time.

Oh my god man. I spent from 4 to 5:30pm on a Saturday afternoon down there, on Atlantic, and saw nobody else whatsoever. I tried to solo it and advanced a couple of checkpoints but it just takes FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER.

Completely non-viable. Had to tell the GF we weren't getting into this after all.

Does EVERYTHING in this game need to be some kind of apocalyptic grind?

You need to jazz the mounts up and cut the HP on everything like in half.

You should've done it sooner. Everyone's moved on from it at this point, since it sucks complete ass doing the war every time. The quests after aren't too bad, since you can do them over & over to farm keys, but the quests for the Moonstone crystal boss (two of which involve lots of sailing) are REALLY bad.

 

[Spock's Beard]

Okay @Kyronix @Mesanna @Bleak and whoever else.

We need to have a serious talk.

This Publish 93 Myrmidex war quest chain? This thing is pretty much emblematic of the last few years of UO development. It's fundamentally sound content, mercilessly strangled to death because you guys woefully misunderstand the amount of grind and overtuning your players will put up with.

The war part? Takes hours to solo, and needs to be soloed, because even on a weekend afternoon on Atlantic I saw not a single soul down there other than myself. Absolutely agonizing. Exactly what is it you guys think will happen if every mob doesn't have thousands of HP?

The three sub-quests after that were fine. I did the Eodon side because the Myrmidex side is just absolutely blatantly not worth doing, but whatever. I killed some more Myrmidex, killed a vorpal bunny, did some gambling, got around the world a little bit. Fine.

Then I get sent to kill the Myrmidex queen and of course it's the stereotypical overtuned "blow you up in one hit from full health with a gimmick attack" boss you guys think everything needs to be. Yawn. I mean how long would I have to sit in chat to find a group for this, given that there are hours of crap required to even access the boss?

Quest dropped. Waste of an afternoon.

Listen, this fantasy scenario of yours where the grind keeps people playing forever and an overtuned brick wall of a boss gets people forming pickup groups? You need to accept that it isn't happening. Instead, otherwise quality content that the game desperately needs is choking to death on this crap before the next publish even hits.

Whatever nightmare series of events you think would ensue if every trash mob didn't have thousands of HP and everything wasn't a brutal grind? You need to learn to accept it. You can just suck it up and deal with people coming on and saying they soloed whatever with their sampire and thought it was easy, if it means the content has a shelf life of more than a month or two.

This isn't funny anymore guys. We need stuff to do. But we're not going to slog through any arbitrary grind just because you put it there.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Amen.

But they were told this before it went live...

 

[Enziet]

We don't need more solo content in an MMO though. It's time for you to make some friends or join a guild and get into some of this non solo content.

Sorry but to me an MMO is a game meant for social interaction. If you don't want to have to play with other people, maybe consider a solid RPG instead ?

They make this content difficult so you will get a group together and go smash your face against it for awhile and try to figure it out.

 

[Dot_Warner]

They make this content difficult so you will get a group together and go smash your face against it for awhile and try to figure it out.

Except that most groups are already bored of this content, mostly due to the grindiness of it. Spock is right about the ridiculous number of HP most Eodon mobs have, it doesn't make them challenging, it makes them boring.

At least with the Queen/Zippy quests you're guaranteed to actually get something for your efforts, unlike the near-perpetual loosing proposition called Shadowguard.

Balance is important.

 

[Tyrath]

And on a lot of shards it is faster to spend hours soloing it than to get a group together

 

[Spock's Beard]

We don't need more solo content in an MMO though. It's time for you to make some friends or join a guild and get into some of this non solo content.

Sorry but to me an MMO is a game meant for social interaction. If you don't want to have to play with other people, maybe consider a solid RPG instead ?

They make this content difficult so you will get a group together and go smash your face against it for awhile and try to figure it out.

The Publish 93 content was abandoned before Publish 94 even arrived. Period. You can deliver all the smug little lectures you want, but they aren't going to make anyone want to go down there.

 

[Enziet]

Oh it's okay, everyone plays MULTIPLAYER games differently. You can keep failing to solo MULTIPLAYER content and cry about it on the forums, while the rest of us get groups together and have a fun time playing a MULTIPLAYER game Just say'n posting in a public place how you want more solo stuff in a MULTIPLAYER game does look a little pathetic... on the social side

 

[Spock's Beard]

Oh it's okay, everyone plays MULTIPLAYER games differently. You can keep failing to solo MULTIPLAYER content and cry about it on the forums, while the rest of us get groups together and have a fun time playing a MULTIPLAYER game Just say'n posting in a public place how you want more solo stuff in a MULTIPLAYER game does look a little pathetic... on the social side

Tell me more about how "the rest of you" are getting groups together for this and having a great time, because apparently I can spend hours and hours of Atlantic weekend primetime down there and never see a living soul. You can be as snide as you want, but people aren't playing the game the way you wish they would, and that's not their problem.

 

[drcossack]

Oh it's okay, everyone plays MULTIPLAYER games differently. You can keep failing to solo MULTIPLAYER content and cry about it on the forums, while the rest of us get groups together and have a fun time playing a MULTIPLAYER game Just say'n posting in a public place how you want more solo stuff in a MULTIPLAYER game does look a little pathetic... on the social side

I did Zippy AND the Myrmidex Queen with a group, mostly a few guildmates. After about a week, we all got bored with both and stopped doing them, since we no longer needed to. Or wanted to, since it was incredibly boring.

Tell me more about how "the rest of you" are getting groups together for this and having a great time, because apparently I can spend hours and hours of Atlantic weekend primetime down there and never see a living soul. You can be as snide as you want, but people aren't playing the game the way you wish they would, and that's not their problem.

This. You can't really get groups to do anything, because all of the content, in a word, sucks. It's either boring to do (pub 93 quests), not worth it (most of the monsters in the game, bosses included), or too easy due to power creep (EVERYTHING can be soloed if you know how.) I could likely ask for people to do Shadowguard and I'd probably get no takers. Nobody wants to kill the same crap over and over just to get nothing out of it *cough* Shadowguard *cough*

@Kyronix @Bleak @Mesanna instead of adding new content every so often that 99% of the playerbase loses interest in after 1-2 weeks, why not revitalize old areas of the game and make them worth doing? Add new bosses to places with good loot for a certain amount of time, then rotate to another dungeon. Revamp the old Doom artifacts (which you're starting to do with the upcoming Staff & Glasses, so that's a start) or just add new ones to Doom and other places. Practically all of the Doom arties are worthless now.

 

[MalagAste]

Lets talk about my own experiences and such of the changes of late... we'll start with Shame... everyone was a bit shocked at first but it went over fairly well for the most part... wasn't horrible wasn't great kinda miss the old dungeon though.

Wrong... was ok... but still to this day most don't go there. Everyone spent ages looking for soap and the blanket and then a few brave souls tried for the special items from down below but most folk couldn't figure it out and gave up.

Cove... well after watching it and participating in it on TC no one I knew wanted to bother with the waves... everyone wanted the arties... 3 trips down to cora later no one got a single thing everyone died at least 4 times and after time #3 no one would go back down there.

Despise.... the worst nightmare ever... not only ruined a good dungeon that was popular and used... but created a griefing like none other so after at least a dozen attempts to get to the end and being griefed over and over and over again most everyone gave up... but I persisted on... 17 trips down to the bottom later # of drops I have gotten.... ZERO... I quit.

Somewhere in all these changes we remember SA and how it's a grind... and how after 3 or 4 trips it's hard to get anyone to go with you to do anything other than medusa runs... if you go to the trouble of getting all the keys.... serious grinding and still no Lavalier or Slither... gave up.

Exodus.... ruined a nice city... caused trouble getting the books we needed to do some of the stuff you know for sand mining and stone mining books... Then found getting the keys to do this is a pain and since everyone that goes needs their own set of keys it takes forever to farm enough keys to take friends. First time got the nice drop of the 5 scroll... 2 or 3 dozen trips later might have gotten 1 other scroll.. don't care about the other garbage as it honestly isn't that good.

New town quests. I find them fun but many folk want the signs and the book and of course that mempo (why I don't know mempos are one of the ugliest things in the game).. but these are kinda solo things not really good if you are with friends unless you are all fairly new.

Eodon... I don't know how many times I've done the turtle... I rarely if ever get anything and can't even get the egg most the time... serious grind and now really not done...
After WEEKS of begging finally got folk to help do the roof.... 3 trips later countless deaths, having to wait hours on end while people have to do the quest... etc.. explaining how to do it listening to friends complain about each room (I find them fun).... they don't want to go to the roof... I beg and plead but after 3 trips I got one drop of a book no one else got anything at all.. I don't know how many folk died how many times but really after spending that much effort and putting in that much time... they really hate it...
so then comes the grind of getting the items like the rugs and such and again huge grind.... can't get folk to go do the ones I can't solo....

After that I haven't given anything anymore of my time... I'm not going to do the grinds anymore.. I haven't bothered with any of the Myrmidex stuff... I just don't care anymore... I'm fed up trying to get anyone to go do things and I am so disgusted by the new art, the new content and the constant grinds that end in disappointment... so I just give up and from the sound of it I'm not going to give a rats about the new stuff coming out in Pub 94 either... so unless something changes... I'm likely not to even bother logging in to do most this junk.

 

[Enziet]

I do agree questing sucks. I do admit that I spend most of my time in dungeons, and dungeons that do not require quests to enter. And yes I bring people along with me most of the time.

I try to avoid the quests, they are horrible and not well executed at all.

It's really not difficult to find people to do dungeons, or even find people that just want to camp in Destard for awhile. It's hard to get people to do the damn ridiculous quests, or anything locked behind a quest wall.

Just felt I needed to clarify this as my previous statements were not very accurate as to what I was trying to articulate. (also it was fun).

What I hope they do in the near future is go back to the system of dungeons like the classics, where we can just grab a group and jump in and kill monsters to our hearts content without having to worry about being locked out for one reason or another. Grind for shiny gear from dead monsters and move on. I think Doom was really the last dungeon to follow this tactic. It had group content as well as solo, and even a (back in the day) horribly confusing puzzle of lamps.

 

[Veldrane]

Oh it's okay, everyone plays MULTIPLAYER games differently. You can keep failing to solo MULTIPLAYER content and cry about it on the forums, while the rest of us get groups together and have a fun time playing a MULTIPLAYER game Just say'n posting in a public place how you want more solo stuff in a MULTIPLAYER game does look a little pathetic... on the social side

Forced grouping works in games with a large healthy player base. In a game with a niche player base like UO, it should be solo friendly at this point.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Forced grouping works in games with a large healthy player base. In a game with a niche player base like UO, it should be solo friendly at this point.

And I fall back on my claim from another thread that on most shards it's tough to put a group together. Ive done some shard hopping just looking around, and except for Atl and a couple of other shards, The only time I can find more than 6-8 people on is at EM events. And most of those arent shard's players, but xsharders that work EM events for a living. Forced grouping for a lot of our shards is just wasted content.

 

[Tyrath]

IF they want to look at quest and what works. There are a few ancient examples that arguably give the most powerful item in the game. And how many years later now...... People are still doing this quest. To which quest am I referring? The Solen Hive, I kind of lump all 3 of the ant related quest together. A bag of Sending, 100 Translocation powder or The Seeds. Every day I make atleast one Powder run and a couple of bag runs. Almost every day I see 2-7 other people doing the same. I will take a page out of Spock's Book here, If you disagree that the Bag of Sending is one of the most powerful items in the game..... YOU ARE WRONG. Too early in the morning to figure up how many years that quest has been in the game now and it is probably the most used quest in the game. Why? Because it does not take hours and hours to do, low level character can do it, and it is a constant. It is not make 200 runs on the bag quest and you have a 1 in 900,000 chance of getting a bag. Same with the running powder, the seeds are random in color but you get a seed every run. People do not feel like they are wasting their time. You can grind it if you want or just do it enough to keep your self stocked.

The vast majority of people like and enjoy simple straight forward quest. One of the best things they could have did was leave TOT turned on, let TOD turned on. Why Because people enjoyed them and it would have been great ongoing content. It was also straight forward and as easy or challenging as the player wanted it to be. I promise if either of those had been left turned on there were still be people in the Dojo and Doom other than Dungeon Thieves steal worthless deco and under powered titans hammers and claws. The DOOM GAUNTLET as others have said the Arties need upgraded, I will use the Armor of Fortune as an example it was considered one of the top drops in the day and still is a worthwhile drop. Problem is NO ONE is going to spend hundreds of hours farming the gauntlet and DF for a 1 in million shot at getting the one or two useful arties. When you can reforge a 150 luck piece add 20lrc, bump the resist and enhance it to 190 luck, That AOF is not so hot anymore. Every piece of arti loot coming out of the gauntlet needs pumped up and made worth the effort. Again DOOM was a fairly hot spot but got ignored. 22 Medusa runs and I got the floor thingy guess what screw that!
Stygian Dragon 8 runs and Nada. I suspect the vast majority of people are simply not going to do this increasingly complex, long and drawn out, bore you to death after about the 3rd time of getting nothing. Or worse get a reward title that is worthless.

Sure Eodon will be hot for a few weeks maybe even a whole month again. From what I have seen on TC it is just another complex grind that a year from now, very few if anyone will be doing. Meanwhile people will still be making bag and powder runs, or buying bags, powder and pet ballz from the people that do grind it a bit. Because it is a simple straight forward quest with valuable and tangible rewards. TOT and TOD would have been as used if they had been left on, DOOM gauntlet would be a hot spot if it was worthwhile.
If course I fail to see why EODON was even created when the EMPTY lost lands could have just been revamped and made interesting.