Ten Things I Wish were handled different in the last 10 years.

[Guest]

Your mileage may vary.

10. Selling out to Todd McFarlane for LBR. The grand Ultima legacy was turned into a vehicle for McFarhack's lousy steampunk "vision."

9. Lack of fresh items or item rotations in Ilshnear. Paragon arties had limitless potential if they'd just put in a LITTLE work.

8. Dumb invasion angles. The Invasion of Trinsic worked. All the other flops did not. Why? Because nobody cares any more. Nothing makes one town more distinctive than another -- you can get anything in Trinsic that you can get in Britan. Also, nothing is ever really at stake, it seems. The only way they can keep our interest is to offer arties. ENOUGH with the "Invasion" angles, it's getting really old.

7. Totally declawing thieves. Sure they were outrageously overpowered and were pure grief vehicles back in the day (a throwaway character could be created that could rob another player blind, risking absolutely nothing each time he died), but now they have absolutely nothing to do in the game, with blessed items, insurance and so forth. I agree they needed nerfing, but maybe they could have had a legitimate PvM direction, not just turning them into useless clowns.

6. Axing the Seers altogether. Sure, there were a few rotten apples, but this was a wonderful chance to give us more ownership in the storylines. It just needed a little work.

5. Cutting GMs from the in-game experience. I haven't seen anything but a cookie cutter response from a bot (erm GM) for years.

4. The fallacy of equating "challenging" by making monsters simply dish out insane damage and quadrupling their hitpoints.

3. Factions. There was so much potential here, but instead it became just another reason people don't go to Fel.

2. AOS, turning this game into a diabolo clone by making combat item-based, and making a whole host of (hard-earned) skills utterly worthless.

1. Failure to stop (or even ACKNOWLEDGE) dupers, scripters and cheaters that have totally flooded every shard with oceans of fake gold and destroyed the collective economies and stole from the legit players.

 

[Redxpanda]

You forgot #11:

Rewarding murderous brigands with Powerscrolls instead of continuing to punish them with Stat Loss. In the process, you have encouraged them control and horde something that was intended for everyone and further seperated the community into the haves and have nots.

 

[imported_Coppelia]

I agree with you. Particularily the 4 first.
But before falling in a river of regrets and waking up a morning thinking "I missed my life", what do you think can be done to smooth the problems and take the right direction now?

 

[imported_Sarphus]

Oh yeah... the McFarlane content is total crap that doesn't make sense in UO. That's what happens when you try to make a UO2 that's different from UO and then just scrap it and toss all the "assets" into the existing UO just because you made them.

BAD idea.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Totally declawing thieves.

[/ QUOTE ]

Understatement of the decade.

Oh, and we don't want to be PvM thieves. We want to steal from other players...la

 

[Guest]

1: Tram. Bad solution to the problem.

2: Aos, fine idea, aweful implementation that took like 5 years to get to a reasonable level of balance.

3: Insurance. Bad idea, never should have happened.

Thats really the short list for me. There are lots of other issues, but these things really hurt the game for me.

 

[Asmodai/Embryo]

<blockquote><hr>

You forgot #11:

Rewarding murderous brigands with Powerscrolls instead of continuing to punish them with Stat Loss. In the process, you have encouraged them control and horde something that was intended for everyone and further seperated the community into the haves and have nots.

[/ QUOTE ]

someone kill this guy repeatedly in felluca please

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

You forgot #11:

Rewarding murderous brigands with Powerscrolls instead of continuing to punish them with Stat Loss. In the process, you have encouraged them control and horde something that was intended for everyone and further seperated the community into the haves and have nots.

[/ QUOTE ]

someone kill this guy repeatedly in felluca please

[/ QUOTE ]

Quote of the day.

I have to say that the number 1. on the list may be a good complaint but it is far from what I would have had at the top.

But yeah that pissed me off for years and still to this day I consider the whole uo becomes a spawn comic as a big fat black mark in the history of the game.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Your mileage may vary.

10. Selling out to Todd McFarlane for LBR. The grand Ultima legacy was turned into a vehicle for McFarhack's lousy steampunk "vision."

9. Lack of fresh items or item rotations in Ilshnear. Paragon arties had limitless potential if they'd just put in a LITTLE work.

8. Dumb invasion angles. The Invasion of Trinsic worked. All the other flops did not. Why? Because nobody cares any more. Nothing makes one town more distinctive than another -- you can get anything in Trinsic that you can get in Britan. Also, nothing is ever really at stake, it seems. The only way they can keep our interest is to offer arties. ENOUGH with the "Invasion" angles, it's getting really old.

7. Totally declawing thieves. Sure they were outrageously overpowered and were pure grief vehicles back in the day (a throwaway character could be created that could rob another player blind, risking absolutely nothing each time he died), but now they have absolutely nothing to do in the game, with blessed items, insurance and so forth. I agree they needed nerfing, but maybe they could have had a legitimate PvM direction, not just turning them into useless clowns.

6. Axing the Seers altogether. Sure, there were a few rotten apples, but this was a wonderful chance to give us more ownership in the storylines. It just needed a little work.

5. Cutting GMs from the in-game experience. I haven't seen anything but a cookie cutter response from a bot (erm GM) for years.

4. The fallacy of equating "challenging" by making monsters simply dish out insane damage and quadrupling their hitpoints.

3. Factions. There was so much potential here, but instead it became just another reason people don't go to Fel.

2. AOS, turning this game into a diabolo clone by making combat item-based, and making a whole host of (hard-earned) skills utterly worthless.

1. Failure to stop (or even ACKNOWLEDGE) dupers, scripters and cheaters that have totally flooded every shard with oceans of fake gold and destroyed the collective economies and stole from the legit players.

[/ QUOTE ]

10. UO already had "steampunk" like vision to it. Look at lasers and spaceships in the early games. Who knows how much money they paid mcfarlane, but it was enough to cram said work into UO with the cancellation of the other project.

9. Agree here. There should have been some plan for like 6 initial drops and then to replace/rotate new ones in every 4 months (just to give them time to make/test the new ones)

8. Invasions do get old, but what else is there? My problem is nothing really sticks from them.

7. Argee here, thiefs need a boost somehow.

6. Disagree, glad they are gone. Some were good, some were bad unless you can bring the same type of service to each shard (which did not happen) it was good to remove them.

5. Argee here. Do not know why they will not let people telecommute. Ok, you want me to come to Fairfax for 3 weeks/month for a bottcamp on gming. Fine I can roll with that. Then let me work from home, its not like they can not track when I log on as a gm.

4. Argeed. It is easier to just pump up monsters than fix the underlying issues.

3. Lets see what these faction changes bring. Whether these changes are all they are going to do. Or are they just the first run at tweaking factions?

2. Yes and No on this. AoS did change the game greatly. As far as a diablo clone, not really. At least in diablo I can find unique armor sets, with unique bonuses. Actually I still play diablo from time to time to try and complete some sets.

1. 100% behind you in this.

 

[Guest]

...

10. Agreed 100% The Borgthorn non-expansion was the absolute WORST in UO history. And then to top it off, the two "races" in "introduced" have become no more a reasonable race addition than mongbats or sewer rats.

9. Agreed. Time to cycle Ilshenar Minors.

8. Partially agree. Magincia and Moonglow are weak. The Ophidian Invasion was BY FAR the best one that they've put together on MANY levels from creature power range to drops to accessibility for solo and group players.

7. Thieves DO need some direction, but they also have to realize that the days of the no-risk, all-reward death robe thief is LONG OVER.

6. Agreed, but thank the abuse of the legal system for this one.

5. I use GMs so little (I don't remember the last time I actually paged for anything aside from the auto-teleport when stuck in Hyth) that it doesn't even register on my mind.

4. I don't mind massive hit points, but I WOULD like the chance to have a character that can wear heavy armor and tank a high hit point creature without dying in two hits through max resists. It doesn't matter how many hit points anything has if a combat lasts no longer than a flip of a coin. PvM needs a complete rework. Uber-pets should NOT be the only feasible tank options, metal armor should provide more protection than leather at the cost of mana regen and speed, and insta-kills (i.e. 1 to 3 hits) should never occur between a high end monster and a maxxed out character.

3. Factions: A good idea that needs a revamp.

2. I'm going to go a different route... instead of AOS (which COULD have done the new item system right had they stayed true to the original model of staggered intensities), I'm going to say that they should have REVERSED the implementation of Trammel. Instead of forcing out the MAJORITY of players in terms of housing and establishments to the new lands, they should have done it to the murderers. Too many player run establishments were lost because of this.

1. Agreed.

 

[Kaj]

<blockquote><hr>


1. Failure to stop (or even ACKNOWLEDGE) dupers, scripters and cheaters that have totally flooded every shard with oceans of fake gold and destroyed the collective economies and stole from the legit players.

[/ QUOTE ]
While I do agree that more needs to be done, I do think burning down half of Luna on some shards is a pretty good acknowledgment.

 

[Guest]

Agreed 100% The Borgthorn non-expansion was the absolute WORST in UO history. And then to top it off, the two "races" in "introduced" have become no more a reasonable race addition than mongbats or sewer rats.

Look I understand that you really dislike the LBR expansion. Becuase it was the beginning of the end for the Third Dawn client. And you feel betrayed by EA reversing themself when they allowed 2D client to enter ilshenar. But it was an expansion. It provided a new area to explore. It filled in the donut that was ilshenar. Giving players a new city to use, and a new dungeon, new craftables, stonemasonry and glassblowing skills, new ridable mount. Started the incompleted virtue system, which people seems to like (at least whats in)

 

[imported_GalenKnighthawke]

1. Doing AoS without caps.

2. Making the AoS item-based system REPLACE, rather than SUPPLEMENT or exist along-side the then-current system.

3. Not putting in runic bows with AoS. (If they had put in runic bows back then, we archers [I used to be one] wouldn't have lobbied as hard for the other changes that eventually made archery over-powered for awhile.)

4. Also AoS related, not keeping stat loss for reds and not keeping the thing where you were teleported out of the Fel dungeons upon death.

5. Not have Ilshenar artifacts drop alongside the ML artifacts.

6. Institute PunkBuster or something highly similar very early on. (We're talking within the first 1 to 3 years.)

7. They should have never allowed, or stopped early on, the sale of in-game stuff for RL money.

8. Non-consensual PvP should never have been a part of this game.

9. Nor should have castles.

I'm sure there's more but I'm done for the moment.

-Galen's player

 

[Thaledred]

12# EA should have never taken control over Ultima Online

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>


12# EA should have never taken control over Ultima Online

[/ QUOTE ]


Ahhhh Pagan

 

[Cogniac]

<blockquote><hr>

7. They should have never allowed, or stopped early on, the sale of in-game stuff for RL money.

8. Non-consensual PvP should never have been a part of this game.

[/ QUOTE ]I see what you did there.

 

[Guest]

...


12# EA should have never taken control over Ultima Online

EA had control LONG before UO.

 

[imported_GalenKnighthawke]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

7. They should have never allowed, or stopped early on, the sale of in-game stuff for RL money.

[/ QUOTE ]I see what you did there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Umm.....

What did I do, other than the obvious (argue that EA should never have allowed, or stopped early on, the sale of in-game stuff for RL money)?

-Galen's player

 

[imported_GalenKnighthawke]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

7. They should have never allowed, or stopped early on, the sale of in-game stuff for RL money.

8. Non-consensual PvP should never have been a part of this game.

[/ QUOTE ]I see what you did there.

[/ QUOTE ]


Oh ok, I see that you quoted both my 7 and my 8.

There's no connection between those I assure you, if that's your implication?

The order was 100% random.

-Galen's player

 

[Guest]

Assorted thoughts ...

10. I think that UO is large enough that each facet should feel like an alternate timeline, even to the point of an alternate genre of game. However, to avoid smudging things together, they should have created facet-bonded items that are inert and non-functional away from their home facet. That way, you could have a full-on steampunk facet without corrupting the "purer" facets.

9. I do think that that minor artifacts should be treated as year-long event items, with a new collection each year (donatable to the museum for replica versions of previous years' issues). It is some work, but should be possible to budget into the live event work.

8. I like invasions. The ophidian invasion was a turning point for me, changing me from a person trying out UO for a few months before upgrading my PC to someone who was going to stick around for a few years. Consequences are hard because the more shards diverge, the harder QA and consistent story-telling becomes. I like the idea of setting aside one or more cities for a permanent ophidian-style invasion that can be beaten back to its source dungeon, decorated with monuments like statues of the city's greatest defenders. I do think that every invasion needs to leave some sort of permanent monument (and monuments could mark triumph or tragedy differently on each shard with a different plaque without creating a QA nightmare).

7. For PvM thieves, perhaps some small items could be rolled for loot at monster spawn instead of monster death, giving a chance for a thief to pursue their craft? For PvP ... well, I'll stay away from that as long as they stay away from me.

6/5. The more people who wander around in-character with godlike powers, the more opportunities for abuse. But more importantly, one-on-one attention is very expensive. I've read that a typical call center charges $12 per call. So one staff appearance per month per account represents the entire fee, leaving nothing for keeping the servers running or paying developers. Although I can sympathize with wanting the personal touch, I'd rather have more developers fixing/adding for everyone simultaneously.

4. I agree that there need to be new types of "challenges", but I've seen a lot of good steps in that direction with the events we've had. There will always be room for horrific super-clobbering beasts ( so long as I can avoid them

). But I would like to see AI "personalities" so that an orc might spawn as a change-and-attack AI, or a hit-and-run AI or a aggro-the-tamer AI, etc. The same personalities could be laid over different creatures, greatly increasing the variability of behaviors.

3. My radical approach would be to replace factions with enhancements to the guild system that would allow guilds to declare themselves to be a faction, a system of guild houses that would act as bases and a trickle of story hooks to give reasons for guilds to choose sides in a variety of conflicts. Not just PvP either - it would be nice for guilds to be able to accept massive "guild-level quests".

2. Massive upheavals generate massive pain. I'm a fan of evolution over revolution and would argue that UO has at times been too expansion-based. New content should be added continuously and events used as backstory to ease the pain of rules tweaks and ensure continuous QA (with the possible exception of when a whole new facet is opened with the intent of being a "new land to explore" ... but the way, having an Ilshenar-like facet that randomly recreated itself from time to time would be very cool, although likely not possible without massive patches on every flip). By the way, I think that the "berzerker shield" mechanic offers the devs a path to recreating environments with a low-power, low-complexity pre-AOS feel to them (and am curious to find out what the ethereal void will have to offer).

1. I've seen enough decaying packies to feel confident that a secret war is being waged against scripters, but have also seen enough evidence to believe that EA is not yet in control of the situation. The duping attacks last year were a real low point, because they were allowed to go on far, far, far too long before action was taken. I'm going to suggest that what EA needs is a statistician/economist position to constantly analyze the state of the game's economy, not just for actual cheaters, but also for degenerate systems that need to be tweaked.

 

[imported_Cysphruo]

when they stopped caring about players and decided they could milk uo for money
-we dont have gms anymore
-they dont care about dupers
-they dont care about what they change, what skills or aspects of the game they destroy
-they dont care about anything but quick/easy money

 

[Guest]

I'm impressed you got through that whole list without using the words "Trammel", "Felucca" and "uo:r"

 

[Maximinus Thrax]

steampunk?

 

[Redxpanda]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

You forgot #11:

Rewarding murderous brigands with Powerscrolls instead of continuing to punish them with Stat Loss. In the process, you have encouraged them control and horde something that was intended for everyone and further seperated the community into the haves and have nots.

[/ QUOTE ]

someone kill this guy repeatedly in felluca please

[/ QUOTE ]

Get in line

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

steampunk?

[/ QUOTE ]
A term for a genre of retro sci-fi such as robots based on steam engines. In UO, it's used for all the Exodus/golem-based stuff that has sci-fi elements dropped into an otherwise fantasy setting. ( further reading )