Strengths and Weaknesses of UO

[A Thought Elemental]

Normally I play WoW. But they've recently announced a Mists of Pandaland expansion which has me quietly puking onto my keyboard. The idea of Kung Foo Panda Players in WoW and an entire worldzone involving them makes me want to /wrist.

So, as might be expected, that kinda brought my thoughts back to this game, which was the first MMO ever, and I figured I'd come here and make a post.

This game has unique strengths which remain as... unique strengths. But the painful weaknesses make me *headdesk*, especially when I read various posts in these forums and see the effects of these weaknesses in action. I wish this game were "right" after all these years and it is frustrating when I see that it is not yet there.

Starting with a few of the strengths: the ability of players to do world-building to an extent by creating their custom houses with the custom house building interface; the uniqueness of tamer pets due to their varied stats at spawn time (these stats are not even visible to non-tamers), extreme variation in gear and item stats making for highly personalized and tuned 'sets'.

Weaknesses. These things make me headdesk so hard. I seriously don't care how many UO players may disagree with what I'm about to say; this is how it is. 1) This game's currency desperately needs to cease to exist in the world as items (checks, etc) and become a solid number associated with a character. The amount of 'owned' currency would always be there with the character, and always be tradeable with other players in simple and easy-to-see numbers. Yes, like WoW does it. This is important for more reasons than I can explain quickly. 2) When a player wants to search for and buy an item being offered for sale on a vendor by another player, there is presently no in-game, game-controlled means for a player to make a query to find the item. Players must instead tab out of the game and go to a gold-seller's website - - as those sites are maintaining databases of many player vendors - to search for the item they desire. This is badly wrong - - there needs to be a centralized "auction house" which, at the very least, indexes data about all items for sale on vendors on the server and helps get that item to the buyer. The in-game system needs to work better than the gold seller sites from the player perspective, as gold sellers should not have their fingers in this process. 3) The integrity of percieved player-owned property in a game like this is paramount. If a player loses an item or a tamer loses a pet and it was an unintentional, unexpected loss, the GMs of this game should have the data available to them to be able to determine what happened and do a restoral if appropriate (players attempting to scam a GM should get their ass beat). It would be beneficial for the backend processes which prevent item/pet loss to be robust. It doesn't matter how accustomed UO players may be to being told "too bad" about these sorts of item/pet loss events, the standards should step to the highest denominator, not the lowest.

Yeah, I know it must be major suck to work with the backend UO server systems because the stuff is kinda old and intricate, and on something like that, even changing one small thing can sometimes twist stuff up in other places.

But okay. There it is. I am done for now, and sulking back to... wherever it is that panda-induced-puking WoW players go.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Actually, UO's biggest weakness, is the fact that EA just doesn't really give a **** about UO. EA basically runs UO (And all of it's other MMOs) like a slum lord, it doesn't give a damn what kind of scum inhabits it's game, so long as the scum pay their monthly fee, just like everyone else. Because of this, cheating is so absolutely rampant in UO, and has infested every single aspect of UO to such a massive degree, that the cheating pandemic can practically be compared to the Bubonic Plague ("Black Death") of the 14th century.

 

[Spyderis]

Ultima is the Greatest online mmo ever! I respect that you play WoW. UO has many strengths, as well as faults. more or less the people who still play love the game as i am one of them. I never really posted but im almost a 9 year vet w/ 2 accounts that was born on siege now catts. My friend plays WoW and i have watched him, to me its like a teenagers game(no disrespect). The problem we have now(uo) is lack of communication. UO has been givin the back door to the new Star Wars game coming out. i think it will drop player bace faster than anyother game..Why? because there is no story we know what happens. There will always be something new coming out.

UO's expansions are good some bugs need fixed However, you will have that anywhere. When i ask my friend can u do this or that in WoW and most times he answers no. Yes we have our problems but im here till it get scrapped and im sure alot are with me.

The Devs and Producers have been beat up on in the last month. Some for good reasons and others not. As for the UO community we need a big and some comunication and all is good. Im hoping for some big surprises soon, as well as many Thousands of others.

We would love to have ya come back and tell ur guild mates
to come over as well!!

Best of luck

 

[G.v.P]

Player housing and pets helped Ultima Online survive as Everquest introduced a third dimension. Now that most games allow player housing and pets, most gamers look at UO as an inferior relic of 2D gaming. PvP in UO requires keyboard smashing and RNG, while PvM in UO requires range awareness and nothing much else. Either you kite the monster or the monster insta-kills you. There's a lack of real strategy and the Stygian Abyss peerless monsters are so watered down they even put a rez ankh in each room. I know the 2D client could be improved upon, but I really don't know why EA wouldn't push for a true 3D client instead. Still, I'm not sure they'd be smart to focus on a new UO client when they could benefit more by focusing on a Dragon Age themed game.

 

[Woodsman]

Strengths
Housing - nothing can touch UO's housing. I thought Lord of the Rings Online was going to make a serious attempt at it, but they suck so hard when it comes to housing I don't even know why they bother trying. If you haven't been exposed to UO's housing, I suppose LOTRO's housing wouldn't seem so bad, but if you have, you really have to wonder. Others completely avoid player housing either because they want players gathering in certain areas more often, or because it's a difficult system to implement, or because player housing can tie a person to a server, and should they decide to close/consolidate that server, they are liable to lose a sub.

Skills - The variety and the fact that you can build anything you want can't be beat. Even now, Blizzard, with all of their resources, is still wrestling with overhauling their trees in WoW, and they can't get it right. UO shows that there are good alternatives. For every standard template that a UO player might use, there is another UO player who has some crazy fisherman that can take on most of the monsters in the game.

The game world itself - large, lots of variety. Player housing contributes to that. I would take this opportunity to pancake about the graphics and about how I would love to see this world updated, but that's being worked on and I'll withhold judgement until I see Pub 73.

The Ultima background. While it may seem buried these days, when you replay the original Ultima games, it is fun to come across little things here and there in UO that remind you of them. This is something that I don't think is exploited enough by UO.

Weaknesses
Community Relations - this seems to be entrenched within Mythic. Even while BioWare is going all out on community relations for Star Wars, UO, Camelot, and Warhammer are all three still ignored. This includes updated websites (barring Camelot) which is important for new players.

In-game communications - it's 2011, the in-game communication needs to be improved. Stepping out of the game for ICQ is ridiculous. The other Mythic MMOs have some decent ideas about in-game communications, pick their brains.

Graphics that take advantage of modern computers - we are supposed to see the first of the updates in Pub 73, so this may stop being a weakness. UO still won't have a true 3D client and that's a shame, but at least things are moving into the modern era. It sounds like they'll have 3D models from the new system if the day arrives when we move to 3D.

New players could be easily overwhelmed, and not just because the UO website sucks. While you can't hold their hand too long, there needs to be a well-written guide/tutorial on the main UO website. Not on Stratics or UO Guide, on the main UO website, because that's where a player will look first.

 

[Salivern_Diago]

I diagree with some of the OP's weaknesess. The Gold/Cheque system is fine as is the current trading/vendor system. I would hate to have any WoW rubbish implimented in UO as WoW has in my view a poor mmo system for trading. Its boring and dosnt really intergrate the players. I often sit at the bank spamming stuff for sale or see other players sell and its something I enjoy with UO. But then I dont like to pay top price for stuff in Luna and those sites mentioned only show Luna or Tokuno vendors whom have only top prices in mind.

Sorry to say but if you prefer the WoW way of doing stuff, then clear off and stay in WoW. We dont want that rubbish anywhere near our UO. Their trading is designed for (Lets face it) idiots who think they are 'hardcore', the're not. WoW is a grind fest, and barely meets the terms of MMO (As there is no RP in WoW, its a dungeon simulator that allows grinds and monster mashing).

Have fun in WoW and leave us true MMORPG'rs to our MMORPG called UO, thank you and goodnight.

 

[G.v.P]

In-game communications - it's 2011, the in-game communication needs to be improved. Stepping out of the game for ICQ is ridiculous. The other Mythic MMOs have some decent ideas about in-game communications, pick their brains.

The public chat at least provides one way of communication. This game actually had a better communication tool in 2001, in the form of player mail boxes on the paperdoll, but they removed that function and later went forth with the virtue system to take up that slot. What I want to know is if the old player mailbox system still exists in the code, and why, exactly, they got rid of that system.

March 30th, 2001:

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Weakness is I can make a 100 million gold in a week and buy anything I want.


Why is the a problem? The exploration and PvM is static. Vending is not static. I enjoy the vending and let others monster bash for hours and buy what the monsters might drop. Though Im not that intersted. Make exploration less static. Less recall and rinse and repeat.

There lies the other part of the problem... monsters have to drop more and more high or new stuff to give people purpose to hunt.


Here is a good example of being on the right track and then wandering off it. The Stygain Abyss Dungeon was outstanding... you had to go in to get things for imbuing, stealing, collecting, using... There was purpose and reward and many levels of play.

THEN UO decides.... lets add silly scriptable ways to get the resources that are (were once) unique to the Abyss. Now you have 10000 seeds of renewal deeds. 10000 crystal what evers from chopping trees. And so on. There are essences out the butt on vendors from 10 of each to 10000 of each.

Purpose is needed and randomization is needed. Exploration and discover has to be valued over ease to get stuff.

 

[Raptor85]

Purpose is needed and randomization is needed. Exploration and discover has to be valued over ease to get stuff.

Randomization is actually what makes scripting so profitable, any repetitive task with a chance outcome is more profitable scripted then could ever be done manually, as the script has infinite time where the player finite. I'm against adding more reasons for people to script, but this is besides the point (sorry, tangent from the previous post on the new ways to get the resources)

As for current UO, it's biggest weakness is it's become generic, it no longer has the unique playstyle and living world it once had, now it's not much more than a 2d everquest clone/poor man's diablo. For some of the others mentioned above...

1. Gold going from checks to part of the character - I completely disagree with this, this essentially allows you to carry infinite gold in safety, and on other shards removes the need for storage space to hold it. Within days of something like this being implemented I wouldn't be surprised to see prices on most shards double to triple.

2. "auctions" system - I disagree with a need for this, I like player run shops (though I do wish we could set up "npc" type shops that sell things in a list, and not just the backpack ones. Auction systems remove a lot of the personality from the game, and the personal touch people put into their shops. (granted, on shards other than siege, you don't see much of that in shops now anyways)

3. disagree - one of UO's biggest problems currently is it's become about the items, and not the game/world. It used to be a game you just played with other people, now the game is about grinding the same mob over and over solo for 6 hours hoping for that 0.5% drop. Adding "permabless" to all items, and giving GM control to recreate/etc adds to the problem by completing the sense that items obtained in game are permanantly yours.

Also, nitpick, yeah, UO is the first MMORPG...but in name alone (Richard Garriot is the one who came up with the name mmorpg...). There were realtime RPGs with just as many players online at once as UO LONG before UO came out, they were just called MUD's and "graphical MUD's" back then. (the most obvious example being meridian 59)

 

[A Thought Elemental]

I diagree with some of the OP's weaknesess. The Gold/Cheque system is fine as is the current trading/vendor system. I would hate to have any WoW rubbish implimented in UO as WoW has in my view a poor mmo system for trading. Its boring and dosnt really intergrate the players. I often sit at the bank spamming stuff for sale or see other players sell and its something I enjoy with UO. But then I dont like to pay top price for stuff in Luna and those sites mentioned only show Luna or Tokuno vendors whom have only top prices in mind.

Sorry to say but if you prefer the WoW way of doing stuff, then clear off and stay in WoW. We dont want that rubbish anywhere near our UO. Their trading is designed for (Lets face it) idiots who think they are 'hardcore', the're not. WoW is a grind fest, and barely meets the terms of MMO (As there is no RP in WoW, its a dungeon simulator that allows grinds and monster mashing).

Have fun in WoW and leave us true MMORPG'rs to our MMORPG called UO, thank you and goodnight.

No.

First of all, son, don't talk down to me.

Second of all, having a broader background including with MASSIVELY SUCCESSFUL MMOs brings good things to the table, as opposed with the mindset of being locked in a closet MMO that's somewhat stuck in... some earlier year. Your "clear off and go to wow" spew can bite me.

Thirdly, UO is the grind, not WoW. My WoW hunter pets require no training (Shadow Elemental, anyone?). My WoW character does not have trainable combat skills, he insta-learns them when he levels. WoW does require you to actually PLAY IT (omg how horrible) instead of... what I did to get my tamer on Atlantic from 110 magery to 120 about 6 months ago which I think I'll skip writing about due to forum rules.

Certain things about UO should not change. But, certain things would help repair these broken worlds.

Currency existing in the world as items (checks) and not a hard number on characters is bad, bad, BAD. Here are some of the reasons. It dis-empowers the people who run this thing from being able to determine who owns what gold. It doesn't allow for a character-based or account-based gold cap. It makes secure trading between players impossible because of the ease of miscounting. It fuels player fraud like a big dog due to the difficulty of in-game trading large groups of currency-items. The overall state of the game's economy is difficult-to-impossible to monitor due to the need to attempt to track a vast number of items throughout the world (and remember that the true controller/owner of this currency isn't necessarily traceable). And that spins into the fact that you have no chance of working toward healthy economies if you can't even see what is happening. Currency as items unnecessarily adds to the already huge item count these worlds already carry. I'll stop there.

It's not a problem to make the trade interface have an option of superficially resembling the old one, and include the image of a little yellow check as though it is being traded. The differences are that little yellow checks would not exist in containers, anywhere (including player inventory), and that when a transaction occurs, it would always be for a single, plainly-defined amount - not a pile of actual items, and never more than one "check" per transaction.

The biggest protesters of this sort of change would be gold-sellers, because they would know that this tool empowers this game's actual owners to begin to take the control of this game's economy back from them. Another set of protesters would be the players who habitually defraud others - - (a behavior which gets you quickly, permanently banned in other MMOs). And then there's the players who have, for whatever reason, accumulated more gold than they would prefer this game's admins to know about. Another group of protesters would be those players who do not understand how important this change is and how much improvement it would empower the game's owners to make. That group would "come around" quickly enough once the change was made. The gold-sellers however might go into all-out war.

If I ran this thing I know how I'd do it, too. It wouldn't even get an annoucement, because I'd like to freeze/migrate the state of the gold ownership without allowing the gold sellers and super-rich-players to move the checks around first. A basic overview of my migration would look like this. If currency-items are in a house in any respect, the resulting gold goes to the bank of the house owner (and no I don't care if the house owner isn't the actual owner of the gold - - that is a player affair. What headaches you make for yourself by placing virtual money in someone else's house are indeed yours). Gold generated from currency-items in banks goes to the associated character. All other currency-items found in the world (such as those placed in public containers or sitting on the ground) are recorded for location/container/etc. for the sake of perhaps future investigation, and deleted.

Then, something like - the login page would get a little interface that allows a player to move gold between characters on the same server. That seems the easiest place to stick such a thing, anyway. This one is path-of-whichever's-easiest. If something in-game is easier than the login screen, then that's where it would be.

It should go without saying that after such a migration, every single gold transaction would start to be recorded and go into a database that is, for practical purposes, never deleted.

If you read all that .. hope you liked it. But if not, I don't even care. It would be cool if it actually happened.

 

[curlybeard]

having a broader background including with MASSIVELY SUCCESSFUL MMOs brings good things to the table,

Are number of subscriptions and total revenue the sole yardstick by which MMORPG success is measured?

UO is certainly long lived. That could be considered massively successful.

UO has a rich and complex gaming system that is many things to many different players. This is could also be a measurement of success.

I, along with probably most people that play UO, have tried many different MMOs. Hard to believe, but some of us even played the game that has generated a number of your thoughtful critiques. Even harder to believe, but some of us choose to play UO because of its inherent UOness (whatever that may be).

A Though Elemental, the ideas that you proposed for the most part have been proposed by others that have played WoW and returned to UO to enlighten us savages of a 2 dimensional isometric world. I personally dislike the WoW auction house concept because I prefer UO auction houses. Is it less efficient? sure. Do I find it more fun? definitely, and I don't believe I am alone in this.

Leveling vs. skill? again another frequent theme on these boards. I like the UO skill concept, levels feel too inflexible. I want my chef that makes killer muffins, and in UO that is a viable playstyle.

While new ideas are always welcome, I think that one should have respect for those that were already here. Understand that the UO community is not cut off from the world, even though our worldview is more pixilated than most.

 

[Ned888]

For me, the strengths of the game boil down to this:

You have the ability to take skills and combine them to create any sort of customer character that you desire. This combined with a crafting system that allows for items that support and synergize with your character create a unique and exciting environment to play in. Adding in custom housing and taming and a plethora of other cool features to make the best game running; and the longest too!

The weaknesses:

Good ideas were introduced to the game (i.e. - imbuing/insurance/commodity deeds/BODs) but were never revisited to ensure that they were operating as intended. This lead to things getting out of hand and being abused, which degraded the economy and ruined much of the game for new players. Combine this with poor customer service (integration into EA was not well done at all); Lack of communication from the team running the game and a continuing system of item escalation (which created an end game that was never present and never needed) and the game continues to flounder.

My thoughts on solutions:

1. Revisit the necessity of BODs and Commodity Deeds - They really need to be removed from the game. Just stop them now and whatever is out there will eventually be used and fade away.
   
2. Check out imbuing and really analyze what LRC and LRM did to the game. No one needs reagents anymore.... that has broken all the magic systems.
   
3. Find a way to get people back to travelling Britannia. Too many gates and recalls. The world is empty excepting for farming areas and a couple of banks (Luna and Haven to be specific).
   
4. Get rid of Haven and Luna! You can just close the bank in Luna but Haven has got to go. Have new characters start in another Britannian city; there's nothing in Haven that can't easily be reproduced elsewhere.
   
5. Create gold sinks and get the economy back on track. This is the most difficult and political of all the issues (except for commodity deeds) but it needs to be done; otherwise things will continue to go south.
   
6. Work with your community. There are some people on here that have HUGE ideas and they are extremely good. Listen and see what you can use. This board is a gold mine of people who love the game and have the experience to make considered suggestions.
   
7. Crack down on the security issues in the game. Again a highly political and difficult task, but you have to do it if you want to keep the game going. Even the gold farmers and scripters have to agree (to a certain extent) that this is necessary, otherwise there will be no game to farm from. Players could help with this too you know.... Stop buying from these guys! They will die off if we starve them!
8. The final thing I would note, and it's not a big deal to me, but is necessary for the game as a whole: Get cracking on a better client and advertise it so some new blood will get into the game.

Nuff Said. Excelsior!

 

[Zosimus]

Strengths
Housing - nothing can touch UO's housing. I thought Lord of the Rings Online was going to make a serious attempt at it, but they suck so hard when it comes to housing I don't even know why they bother trying. If you haven't been exposed to UO's housing, I suppose LOTRO's housing wouldn't seem so bad, but if you have, you really have to wonder. Others completely avoid player housing either because they want players gathering in certain areas more often, or because it's a difficult system to implement, or because player housing can tie a person to a server, and should they decide to close/consolidate that server, they are liable to lose a sub.

Skills - The variety and the fact that you can build anything you want can't be beat. Even now, Blizzard, with all of their resources, is still wrestling with overhauling their trees in WoW, and they can't get it right. UO shows that there are good alternatives. For every standard template that a UO player might use, there is another UO player who has some crazy fisherman that can take on most of the monsters in the game.

The game world itself - large, lots of variety. Player housing contributes to that. I would take this opportunity to pancake about the graphics and about how I would love to see this world updated, but that's being worked on and I'll withhold judgement until I see Pub 73.

The Ultima background. While it may seem buried these days, when you replay the original Ultima games, it is fun to come across little things here and there in UO that remind you of them. This is something that I don't think is exploited enough by UO.

Weaknesses
Community Relations - this seems to be entrenched within Mythic. Even while BioWare is going all out on community relations for Star Wars, UO, Camelot, and Warhammer are all three still ignored. This includes updated websites (barring Camelot) which is important for new players.

In-game communications - it's 2011, the in-game communication needs to be improved. Stepping out of the game for ICQ is ridiculous. The other Mythic MMOs have some decent ideas about in-game communications, pick their brains.

Graphics that take advantage of modern computers - we are supposed to see the first of the updates in Pub 73, so this may stop being a weakness. UO still won't have a true 3D client and that's a shame, but at least things are moving into the modern era. It sounds like they'll have 3D models from the new system if the day arrives when we move to 3D.

New players could be easily overwhelmed, and not just because the UO website sucks. While you can't hold their hand too long, there needs to be a well-written guide/tutorial on the main UO website. Not on Stratics or UO Guide, on the main UO website, because that's where a player will look first.

Everything Woodsman said I agree with except one.

For UO housing is strong but I think DaoC has a better housing system Since they have clusters its an epic win for DaoC players. Plus a rent system I think should be put into UO.

 

[Zosimus]

I should add a weakness.

Two clients that are not even up to date with other MMO's.

 

[Salivern_Diago]

Umm... No if you did that Elemental then I would leave UO and so would alot of other players. I dont care for any of the WoW rubbish, especially the in game trading. Its terrible.. It IS just a grind fest for dungeons and has NO RP. It isnt a MMORPG its a MMODM (Massively Multiplayer Online Dungeon Mash).

I find your suggestions flawed, irrational and mainstream. UO isnt anything like WoW thankfully and the ideas of changing the trading and gold is just rubbish. There is nothing wrong with the way UO trades, its lasted 14 years so it has to be doing something right. I am thankful you dont run the game and I hope you never do. Making a change like that without telling the players is just stupid. As I said before, if you like how WoW plays and dont like UO's way of playing.. clear off back to WoW and leave us UO players to play the game we LOVE, you've even admitted you dont play UO anymore so nuff said..

Oh btw I'm not your son, thanks all the same.

[EDIT] OH Having just reread your post about how WoW works... That is the exact reason why I dislike WoW, you get insta skills, you 'level' up, you get perfect pets... Its a game designed for those who want to mash rather than RP. I like training my skills as then it feels like I acomplish something (I got all excited when I 120'd Resist spells the other day). When I've been out looking for a decent pet, it was fun spending several hours looking around, fighting and chatting to people. And as for leveling up... No-thanks, skill percentages is alot more accessable and flexible than the levels. Thanks for your thoughts though, but yeah lets keep UO as UO ey.

 

[5% Luck]

I am a player who hates "class games" and "class trees" and "rail games" That leaves me with very little choice for an mmo tittle. I also hate when producers advertize "open world" when they mean "leveled zones" are assessable by anyone. If it was an open world there would be something there for all levels of play.

For me UO is an open world with no classes a free assortment of skills w/soulstones. Fully custom housing including "location" and the best of both pvm and pvp on a single server.

Though the game is old and the graphics outdated and a lowish population it still holds a vibrant community. Players complain about the general chat but really have these people ever been on the internet? It is almost benign in comparison to any other game ive been in that wasnt directly moderated and filtered.

To make a fair correlation, most gamers know about SWG. The difference between UO and any other title out there is the same -to me- as the game changing fiasco SoE did with SWG. It is night and day. Now Im not saying the "rails" in SWG are teribad but going from one to the other is... yea..

 

[pgib]

Strength:

1. Taming. I tried other games but none has something comparable to UO taming, the weird feeling that the pet is the real strength and your character something like an helpful assistant.
2. mhhh... Taming.

Weaknesses.

1. Management: nothing to add here, we all know how many resources are put in this game, how good is the interaction with the player base and all.
2. Developement: for each feature we have ten bugs that sits down until the next feature is introduced, leading to more bugs that will never be addressed.
3. Design: they keep adding things that blatantly show a total lack of knowledge about the game and the way we play it.

 

[Rowdydude]

I love UO been playing since beta and even worked for Origin

As for strength and weakness

Strength -- open world you can do what you want when you want where you want

Weakness --- Population

Heres my view on where we stand. This game is on cruise control. they cant do anything that would cause subscriptions to be cancelled NOTHING cant fix dupers, cant fix scripting

When they look at doing anything they have to consider the following 1) how much will it cost us to do this? 2) will it cost us subscribers?

Until we get more people (thus more money) and EA can afford the loss in subscriber status quo will be the norm


Enjoy it while it last a slow painful dead is ahead for those of us that do

 

[K_Sarai]

Blizzard is implementing a Panda Land? lol....

The crux of the problem that exists in UO also exists in Dark Age of Camelot. One of the biggest reasons many players left DAOC was because of 2nd account buff bots being the balancing factor of classes, and everything is out of whack. The gates of the PvP/RvR zones are full of Healing classes that sit there AFK, passively buffing the actual player characters.

But it's too late; if EA/Mythic removes buff bots from DAOC, there goes 50% of their current subscriber base. That's one heck of a gamble to perform in the hopes of enough returning players to compensate for their subscription loss.

Same with UO scripters/farmers that are raking in the ca$h for playing a game. It's far too tempting for the casual player to part with some of their RL earnings to stay caught up. Plus, if something is done about it, they've lost who knows how many accounts.

The need for these items should have never been implemented in the first place, but it's way too late for that. What's a company to do? Hand it over on a silver platter? You can't spit and then lick it back...

 

[Cupid]

Been playing since 1998 and played WOW for 4 years or so and I agree with the above, loved the AH in WOW, not the grind.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

1) This game's currency desperately needs to cease to exist in the world as items (checks, etc) and become a solid number associated with a character.

Yes.

2) When a player wants to search for and buy an item being offered for sale on a vendor by another player, there is presently no in-game, game-controlled means for a player to make a query to find the item. Players must instead tab out of the game and go to a gold-seller's website - - as those sites are maintaining databases of many player vendors - to search for the item they desire. This is badly wrong - - there needs to be a centralized "auction house" which, at the very least, indexes data about all items for sale on vendors on the server and helps get that item to the buyer. The in-game system needs to work better than the gold seller sites from the player perspective, as gold sellers should not have their fingers in this process.

There should be an ingame search feature, however it should point a player to the vendor holding said item(s) for sale. An auction house isn't needed in UO, but a centralized search system IS.

3) The integrity of percieved player-owned property in a game like this is paramount. If a player loses an item or a tamer loses a pet and it was an unintentional, unexpected loss, the GMs of this game should have the data available to them to be able to determine what happened and do a restoral if appropriate

In theory yes, in practice, we're going to need a MUCH bigger GM staff to do this.

 

[Gheed]

1) This game's currency desperately needs to cease to exist in the world as items (checks, etc) and become a solid number associated with a character. The amount of 'owned' currency would always be there with the character, and always be tradeable with other players in simple and easy-to-see numbers. Yes, like WoW does it. This is important for more reasons than I can explain quickly.

I agree But I think currency also needs to be account bound (accessible by all chars on an account) and across all shards.

Account bound currency would be handy for newly created chars on an older account who would like to buy basic gear w/o shuffling currency around. It would also make chat transactions faster as you wouldn't have to find the char/account with all the gold.

I think making currency available across all shards on an account would not effect or actually increase xfer token sales. There are many small items on other shards I would like to have purchased but don't because I don't want to burn two tokens xfering gold from my shard then the item back to my shard. However there are many items I would burn a single token for or I may just stockpile smaller items untill I feel I have my token's worth to xfer.

But overall the op's original idea would all but eliminate scamming from large transactions. An excellent idea!

2) When a player wants to search for and buy an item being offered for sale on a vendor by another player, there is presently no in-game, game-controlled means for a player to make a query to find the item. Players must instead tab out of the game and go to a gold-seller's website - - as those sites are maintaining databases of many player vendors - to search for the item they desire. This is badly wrong - - there needs to be a centralized "auction house" which, at the very least, indexes data about all items for sale on vendors on the server and helps get that item to the buyer. The in-game system needs to work better than the gold seller sites from the player perspective, as gold sellers should not have their fingers in this process.

You know there is alot of chat about Diablo III concerning something like this. IIRC They are going to implement their own RMT auction house allowing players to put items up for sale and purchase items from others for real money. I am very interested how this will work out. I don't think there is an MMO out there that isn't plauged with RMT. This idea seems to make sense. You buy and (I think) Blizzard will take their cut. RMT outside of Blizzard will basically be competing with every other player who wishes to undercut them. The idea will be either revolutionary or a total disaster.

 

[Woodsman]

You buy and (I think) Blizzard will take their cut. RMT outside of Blizzard will basically be competing with every other player who wishes to undercut them. The idea will be either revolutionary or a total disaster.

I wouldn't trust EA with this idea for the simple fact that somebody will decide they should be focusing the game on trying to generate more sales through such a scheme. Every new addition to the game would stop being "would this help the game, would players to enjoy this" to "can we make money from this?"

I see this with a lot of "free" mobile and "free to play" games - the focus of the game shifts to "pay to win".

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

The Diablo III RMT auction house is interesting and close to what I have thought would be a good idea in ANY MMOG.

First of all you're NOT going to get rid of RMT. RMT by itself isn't "evil", it's simply two people trading goods. The problem comes when you have people exploiting the game to augment their RMT actions.

A neutral ground system such as an out of game auction site would (in theory) allow the game's CS staff to observe the markets, investigate possible exploiters based on their listings, and remove people from the game that are found to be exploiting to make a profit because (also in theory) the site would be linked to your ingame account. Add in a small transaction fee and with luck you get a self-sustaining system.

RMT in my opinion has a lot in common in ways with digital downloading. They can be embraced and used to augment a market or they can be fought against. Fighting against may work in limited ways, but overall you're never going to eliminate the practice. Embracing the system can, on the other hand, allow for new markets and revenue streams to be opened.

 

[AesSedai]

...
First of all you're NOT going to get rid of RMT. RMT by itself isn't "evil", it's simply two people trading goods. The problem comes when you have people exploiting the game to augment their RMT actions.

A neutral ground system such as an out of game auction site would (in theory) allow the game's CS staff to observe the markets, investigate possible exploiters based on their listings, and remove people from the game that are found to be exploiting to make a profit because (also in theory) the site would be linked to your ingame account. Add in a small transaction fee and with luck you get a self-sustaining system.

RMT in my opinion has a lot in common in ways with digital downloading. They can be embraced and used to augment a market or they can be fought against. Fighting against may work in limited ways, but overall you're never going to eliminate the practice. Embracing the system can, on the other hand, allow for new markets and revenue streams to be opened.

- Duh. Like, tell me something I don't know.

- Good stuff. True stuff. EA should've listened to this stuff like over the last 10+ years that it was loudly suggested re: UO.. But NO, they would rather lose that guaranteed added income.. income that could be applied to prevent what we all really hate = cheating. And why? - By my thinking it was mostly: to keep legitimate players happy; oh the irony. Then again, maybe it wouldn't be fair to all because we would need to be 18+ in order to make RMTs without as many EA legal worries.. heh.. sure, that would be a concern of EA's that a simple disclaimer could take care of.. yeah, sure.

(Sure, cheaters can sell stuff for money and always will be able to; just like non-cheating players always will be able to, as long as RMT is allowed as it has been in UO. So what did I just write that makes non-cheating players angry about RMT? Oh yeah, it was: cheating. Cheating is bad)

 

[G.v.P]

I wouldn't trust EA with this idea for the simple fact that somebody will decide they should be focusing the game on trying to generate more sales through such a scheme. Every new addition to the game would stop being "would this help the game, would players to enjoy this" to "can we make money from this?"

I see this with a lot of "free" mobile and "free to play" games - the focus of the game shifts to "pay to win".

It's too late to start worrying about EA adopting a free-to-play mindset because they're already there. The whale ship, which began as an in-game then sold through UOGameCodes, is one example. Yes, EA told us they had plans to sell it at UOGameCodes, but the idea of an item being available both via play and RMT is pretty much free-to-play at work, is it not? Except for the fact UO is still pay-to-play.

 

[canary]

First of all, son, don't talk down to me.

First off, he wasn't. Secondly, you are talking down to him in this very sentence. He isn't your son. Don't address hiom as such.

Strengths are skill versus level based, housing, and the ability to drop things on the ground.

Weaknesses are indifferent development team members (not all of them, but many), communication, bad graphics and EA's inability to invest in the game properly.

 

[Ned888]

Perhaps a reasonable solution to the AH vs. Vendor debate would be to have vendors 'registered'.

When you purchase a vendor and place them, you would be able to go to a bulletin board (possibly posted by the bank) where you could enter coordinates for your vendor and the general type of merchandise they carry (Bowcraft / Blacksmith / Carpentry / Etc.). People would be able to search through this bulletin board, locate the general product that they wanted and find several locations to shop. This would give them general information about the products sold, but not necessarily the prices or exact merchandise.

This would make shopping more fun and random as well as encourage vendors to have a wide variety of products well stocked at all times to make sure they have traffic to their stores.

This would not have to be a mandatory registration (or whatever you want to call it) but it would provide a much better solution that dropping runes all over the place or just wandering around checking random vendors. It would also help advertise your vendors a little bit and encourage players to shop around to different, alternative locations.

Just a thought.

 

[Zyon Rockler]

I think UO should have 1 bank per account. If you have 1 character it would have 125, if you had 2 characters it would have 250 and so on. 1 bank for all of your characters.

I think they should have a Merchant Skill where you're able to target any vendor using the skill and pull up a filter menu. If you have 120 Merchant the character could save 10% and be able to locate an item by typing in properties, possibly up to 5 or any given name.

So, you could search katana, hit lightning, swing speed and have coordinates or even be able to open up the pack from that spot.

Limit 5 vendors per house and build NPCs up to compete with prices of players. Allow them to produce items that become to high in the economy.

So, if an artifact is thought to be worth 5,000 and the vending system sees that artifact for 6,000 it places an artifact on an NPC for 5,000 causing absolute control of prices for any item.

Also, items could be placed of great value that could be used only once as gold sinks. Redoing NPC Vendors and the goods they sell should put them into competition with the player forcing them to adjust prices and create good product.

UO's greatest strength being before WoW and able to change.

UO's greatest weakness is fear to commit to its' change.

Anything could be adapted and it will take time to have all of these mini systems and major systems put into place but because it's capable of doing that and because everyone is waiting for it to change makes it the best investment in the world but that is a small window, soon games will write themselves and it will become easy to compete with what UO is, not just its' graphics or its' sound but its following.

I think its' graphics, in a way, the places that we can see in our minds, the square blocks, are kind of a trade mark but that look should not stop it from becoming full 3D. We should be able to zoom all the way down into the eyes of the character but still be able to keep the feel or the memory.

Like changing something but leaving that part of it, that even though it's completely different everything that was once there can still be seen but bigger and better, more real.

 

[MalagAste]

Normally I play WoW. But they've recently announced a Mists of Pandaland expansion which has me quietly puking onto my keyboard. The idea of Kung Foo Panda Players in WoW and an entire worldzone involving them makes me want to /wrist.

*laughs*

What you mean you aren't totally looking forward to the Kung Foo Panda/Pokemon expansion!

*Laughs!*

But WoW is so mature! Nothing like catering to the kiddies...




OMG I can't stand it!

 

[Tanivar]

Limit 5 vendors per house and build NPCs up to compete with prices of players. Allow them to produce items that become to high in the economy.

So, if an artifact is thought to be worth 5,000 and the vending system sees that artifact for 6,000 it places an artifact on an NPC for 5,000 causing absolute control of prices for any item.

Also, items could be placed of great value that could be used only once as gold sinks. Redoing NPC Vendors and the goods they sell should put them into competition with the player forcing them to adjust prices and create good product.

This could certainly help the game economy by knocking prices down to something reasonable.

Though I've seen arrows on sale in Luna for 20 to 40 gold each when most other towns npc vendors sell them for 13 to 15 gold each, so it might not even phase the greedy souls who feel no price is enough unless it has to many zeros added to it. rolleyes:

 

[5% Luck]

Unbelievable (Id use the word wow but am unsure this group would understand the dynamic)! Way to jump on the wow bandwagon.. No wonder every developer wants to clone WoW! Lets implement the WoW gold system... Lets get rid of vendors and make an AH ...like in WOW... Lets be like WOW...

Do you hear your selves?

 

[puzzleagent]

*laughs*

What you mean you aren't totally looking forward to the Kung Foo Panda/Pokemon expansion!

*Laughs!*

But WoW is so mature! Nothing like catering to the kiddies...




OMG I can't stand it!

Hm I find the next expansion interesting and thought it'd be fun to play a pandaren monk (I liked the pandaren hero on wc3)

Does that make me one of the kiddies? :O

 

[Salivern_Diago]

I prey to god that UO never becomes anything like the tragedy that is WoW. UO has quality, WoW has quantity, and I hope that never changes.

 

[Mirt]

UO has the strengths that it has depth and options. I have spent more time then I really care to admit working numbers on suits and on skills and I enjoy that. Is it difficult for some folks. Hell yes. But ask those of us that like it and we will help you out. UO's big weakness is that its not putting in the money to add content. It is faced with a huge chasm of folks that insist any new client must have 3D (or 3D style graphics) which at least an equal number of players threaten to quit over. Additionally people feel the need to constantly debate every single change that has come in since publish 16, despite the fact that just a year or two ago it the idea of a classic shard was shot down. Despite this if UO were ever able to fix these issues and do some advertising I think it could be even bigger then it was at its peak. Additionally I would say that for the most part UO attracts better and more mature players then many of the other MMO's with the possible exception of EVE. So if a simple decision could be made UO could easily have another 14 more years in it.

 

[phantus]

UO's achilles heel will always be a limited number of hit points. Unfortunately this is (IMO) one of the reason why UO PvP is so enticing. For PvM it's a brick wall and some of the results of this are echoed in posts above. You can't add more powerful spells, items or monsters when your HP remains the same. Of course you have zounds of people that will pounce on this "weekness" as a strength because nothing should ever change. This limits the games forward movement because all the encounters are handled the same. There is only a certain amount of traction you can get from current mechanics for monsters or boss'.

 

[Zyon Rockler]

I wanted to add to UO's strengths to try and eliminate its' weaknesses by suggesting some type of WIKI or a Tree Development that uses everyone's ideas. So, that even if the game can not advance its' idea can.

So, we could continually build on different systems even if they were never implemented to get a better idea of what the core systems need to be. Kind of like a program or a Java Script that is written to simply read.

Also, some type of Test Shard that reflects the core systems that would be necessary, not opinions but systems that are a necessity from what we have learned.

So, that's kind of UO's greatest strength, is that we have learned and we know what we need to do. So, by starting to create a blue print that possitively reflects everything that we've learned we can then fix these systems and build on them in an idea form without even needing to implement them.

By having a Test Shard they could work on systems that would make any of these changes possible and decide what would be acceptable through their player base. Kind of like taking Stratics and adding possible future and tieing it into a system that everyone can understand but in a Tree Form or Java Pyramid.