TEN THINGS I'D LIKE TO SEE - April 2011

[Arafel Ilianna]

Hail and Well Met, fellow Sosarians and UO Gods and Goddesses (that's YOU, Dev Team!)

Today, for your consideration and thoughtful, productive responses, I offer you ten things that I’d love to see! Hopefully, these represent simple changes to grace our ever-changing landscape!

1.) NEW MAGINCIA: Okay, the plot winners have been determined and the REAL business of rebuilding a vibrant and energetic new town can now begin in earnest! Some ideas for the newborn island:

a.) We HAVE two cities that are packed FULL of vendors in Luna and Zento... do we REALLY need a THIRD? How about creating an "actually working" town instead? For example, what if we took it upon ourselves to create not just twenty-two more mismatched houses, but rather, player-run shops and services? Consider this short (and non-conclusive) list for ideas: a foundry/blacksmith shop (where PLAYER blacksmiths could craft fine armor and weapons for the masses), a leather tanner and tailor shop (where PLAYER tailors could assemble fine cloth and leather clothing), an alchemist's shop (get your potions by the bottle or the keg, and pick up some glassware whilst you're here too!), and a gardener's shop (where players could share seeds and resources, and hundreds of new plants could be raised each day for all to enjoy!). Other buildings could include an artificer's shop, a stone mason's / carpenter's shop, a New Magincia City Hall, a New Magincia Governor's Mansion, a rares museum (not selling anything), a rune library, and a fish market, among others. Yes, there could still be vendors and commerce, but here, the PLAYER CRAFTED ITEMS would be emphasized. Finally, everyone's blacksmiths, artificers, tailors, fishers, stone masons, tinkers, carpenters, (and so on), would have a place to gather and work. THIS would be the place to procure a Golem; THIS would be the place to order a magically enhanced or imbued suit of armor; THIS would be the place to buy those rare and elusive fish! This is a city of HUMILITY--let hard working craftsmen and women earn a FAIR wage here--the shard-hopping rares dealers and purveyors of Power Scrolls and Artifacts can still ply their trade in Zento and Luna! (Note: this is NOT a plea to the Dev Team--this is a plea to the PLAYERS! Only WE (collectively) can make Magincia a beautiful and meaningful place! Only WE can give it warmth and purpose and character! Whadaya say?!?)

b.) To help people identify their new surroundings, how about unobtrusive street signs on each corner... let's name the streets after the heroes of our world! Queen Dawn Lane would certainly be a fitting start!

c.) A winding path of stepping stones leading from the nearest stretch of road in town to the moongate out in the forest would be a welcome addition for folks (young and old) who are seeking the way between the moongate and the town!

d.) Runes marked in New Magincia still say "Magincia." Time to update the name with that "New" qualifier!

e.) Finally, this wonderful new gardening system introduced with the rebirth of Magincia has one small flaw: raising plants requires daily care, and --let's face it-- there IS life outside of UO! So, perhaps the Dev Team will bless us with a "vacation mode" of some kind--sort of like the discs that we can purchase to keep our aquariums happy for a week at a time?

2.) ESCORT SERVICE: There are NPCs all over New Magincia looking for Compassion Escorts to places elsewhere... shouldn't the "places elsewhere" be populated with NPCs hoping to hitch a ride to New Magincia too? And, in ALL scenarios, can we PLEASE lessen the time between escorts? Five minutes could be three! Why must it be so tedious?

3.) OUR FAVORITE CELEBRITY THIEF: Okay! Ricardo is officially SANE and a new hero of the land! Can we PLEASE now take down his wanted poster at the Luna bank (and elsewhere), and put the prison wagon and its team back in its barn and stables at the Yew prison?!?

4.) IN UTTER DARKNESS: PLEASE fix whatever the bug is that makes nightsight fail! It should not matter if you cross a server line, or if you are on water or on land! Elves should ALWAYS have nightsight vision (and it should not be possible to cast nightsight on them, either)! Humans and Gargoyles who are wearing objects that possess the nightsight property should never find themselves "in the dark"! (Note: I most often suddenly lose my nightsight while traveling over a server line at sea, if that helps...)

5.) THE WAR IS OVER: The Virtuebane Demon is (at least temporarily) defeated! He and his minions have been returned to the hell that spawned them! This means it's time to take down the red and white pedestals and bells in each town, too!

6.) TALKIN' TRASH: Time to clean up the trash! I'm not sure what it looks like on other shards, but on Lake Superior, there is "Rubble From A Skull Totem" on the floor of the Luna Bank, and a wayward "statue" at the SE corner of the New Haven Bank, and other similar, forgotten bits of meaningless pixel clutter are scattered about the realm as well! EVERY BANK should have a trash receptacle nearby--even in New Haven! (Now that new players can start everywhere, New Haven should not be treated differently... BUT, if the concern exists that new players may inadvertently discard something they shouldn't, an "Are you sure...?" type warning could be added to the New Haven trash bin!)

7.) A LICENSE TO FISH, PART I: Okay, the novelty is over—may we PLEASE introduce a public moongate at the Sea Market? Or, at the very least, allow characters to mark recall runes there? Access to the Sea Market (aka Floating Emporium) can still be restricted such that people without the High Seas expansion cannot be gated there, recall there, or mark runes there… It is tiresome and inconvenient that the Sea Market may only be reached by ship, especially now that it has been in existence for several months!

8.) A LICENSE TO FISH, PART II: Was (Is) it really the intention of the Dev Team to make +15 and +20 Fishing Power Scrolls the hardest Power Scrolls to obtain in the whole game? None of us mind putting in the work and the time—but there are MANY nearly-full-time-fishers out here who are about darn sick of getting bait and lava fishing gear!

9.) AVAST THERE, MATEY: PLEASE give us the ability to customize our ship pilots! Hair, clothing, items held (a hammer? REALLY?), and name—just like a vendor—would be quite welcomed! Let us dress them like ship captains and pirates and mariners! And let us give them names other than Eva, and Larry, and Steven!

10.) TO STACK OR NOT TO STACK: There is, perhaps, (outside of the mechanics of PvP) no issue that comes up as often and as passionately as the ability to stack like-objects. I would recommend that the Dev Team include at least five new items (to become “stackable”) with EVERY publish, until no more items can be identified for this fix! Here are twenty items that come to mind—I am sure that there are many more suggestions out there for this list, as well:

a.) Focusing Gem of Virtue Bane
b.) Matching types of footwear (e.g., un-dyed thigh boots, shoes, or boots)
c.) Ancient Pottery Fragments
d.) Undamaged Undead Gargoyle Horns
e.) Blackrock Stew
f.) Ophidian Avenger Arms
g.) Small Pieces of Blackrock
h.) Dyes
i.) Single-use bottles of same-color dyes (e.g., Haochi; Tokuno)
j.) Tasty Treats
k.) Cocoa Butter
l.) Cocoa Liquor
m.) Samples of Corrupted Water
n.) Sap of Sosaria
o.) Enchanted Switches
p.) Jeweled Filigree
q.) Unmarked Recall Runes
r.) Coil’s Fangs
s.) Swabs
t.) Ramrods

Thank you Dev Team and fellow UO Players for your time!

Lady Arafel Ilianna
Lake Superior, Sosaria

 

[mjolnir131]

no we don't need a third, luna need to burn like the bad idea it was

 

[popps]

10.) TO STACK OR NOT TO STACK: There is, perhaps, (outside of the mechanics of PvP) no issue that comes up as often and as passionately as the ability to stack like-objects. I would recommend that the Dev Team include at least five new items (to become “stackable”) with EVERY publish, until no more items can be identified for this fix! Here are twenty items that come to mind—I am sure that there are many more suggestions out there for this list, as well:

a.) Focusing Gem of Virtue Bane
b.) Matching types of footwear (e.g., un-dyed thigh boots, shoes, or boots)
c.) Ancient Pottery Fragments
d.) Undamaged Undead Gargoyle Horns
e.) Blackrock Stew
f.) Ophidian Avenger Arms
g.) Small Pieces of Blackrock
h.) Dyes
i.) Single-use bottles of same-color dyes (e.g., Haochi; Tokuno)
j.) Tasty Treats
k.) Cocoa Butter
l.) Cocoa Liquor
m.) Samples of Corrupted Water
n.) Sap of Sosaria
o.) Enchanted Switches
p.) Jeweled Filigree
q.) Unmarked Recall Runes
r.) Coil’s Fangs
s.) Swabs
t.) Ramrods

Absolutely.

If it was me in charge, I'd probably make a whole Publish JUST focused in making items stack, as well as introduce NEW special containers (like Bulk Order Deeds BOOKs) for a variety of items that players have trouble efficiently storing.

Stuff like containers for Treasure Maps, For Jewellery, for Armor. for Weaponry, the hundreds if not thousands of Holiday items we've been getting over the years, and so forth.

It would be wonderfull to be able to hold up to 500 Treasure Maps in 1 single Book counting for 1 item.

Or, to have all of one's own jewellery in one case which one could use filters on to faster and better retrieve whatever ring or bracelt one is looking for.

And what about that so much wanted armor or weaponry Armoire ? A single container where to store all of one's own armor or weapons for faster and better retrieval depending on the needs using filters ?

It would be wonderfull.

I really think that if the Developers spent a bit more work into making a lot more items stackable as well as designing new containers to make storage more efficient for players, the enjoyment of Ultima Online for many players would be greatly enhanced.

 

[Viper09]

I'd like to see brewing added to that list.

*reads recent update from devs*

Oh wait,

 

[Sevin0oo0]

I liked those ideas.

include all stackable items to go into commodity deeds also

 

[Jhym]

1-a) I wanted them to add non-optional vendors to certain "houses", and that none of the plots could be marked as private. But it seems that's too radical.

-b) I think most cities should have new signs by now, and that they should be on a per-shard setting, with optional changing by EMs to reflect the shard.

-c) The island is NOT large, so I see no real purpose to this other than for those that are idiots and can't walk around for a few minutes.

-d) I presume they'll do this when everything is complete.

-e) My response would be "why are you planting something you can't take care of?"

2) They removed them when Magincia was destroyed, they will likely add them back when it is completed. The timer was because of people leading ridiculous numbers of escorts around, but I think they should remove the timer and reduce the resulting compassion boost.

3) Many shards had them removed, but they didn't get all of them. As for the wagons, *shrug*. They should probably set them up at the yew prison as a new addition, perhaps a pen with the animals and one or two wagons and a "trainer".

4) They haven't been able to figure this out for over 10 years, I suspect they never will.

5) Probably when Magincia is completed.

6) ... people who really have an issue with it can ask their EMs about it, but honestly there are better things to spend time on.

7) I'd rather they have a "ferry" to the dock from one or two places that costs 1K per ride.

8) This will likely change over time, are people really that impatient these days?

9) Would be fun, but depends on whether the tiller is static or not and possibly opens up exploits.

10) We've told them over and over, they say they have lists of them, they'll get to it when they wish to. Not much more to say about it.

 

[Jhym]

I'd rather they give us an addition to all containers that we can "activate" to allow searching within the container.

So, you click a button on a chest, it pops up a "search string", you enter some text ("bracelet, magery, lower reagent cost") , and it pops items to a "tray" for you to look at.

If they could implement this on one container then they could add it to any, eventually to vendors and bank boxes.

 

[claudia-fjp]

2.) ESCORT SERVICE:

I'D LIKE TO SEE

 

[Nexus]

Can't say I disagree with your list, but I do have my own.....

1. Stability Issues in the EC fixed.
2. Integration of Classic Client art into the EC with a "Legacy Graphics" option - Once done the CC can be done away with. Players can choose keep the UO they prefer without the need for updating 2 clients. Let people have the graphics they love, but give them a better UI to work with. UO will never have the potential to be attractive to new players as long as the CC exists. Don't get me wrong I still like the CC but the current player base can not be looked at as the future of UO. We are the past, we are the present, but never ever the future. Look forward, almost every new player or person returning from a very long period away is going the EC route, they actually prefer it over the CC because it is more like a Modern UI. Continued support for the CC in terms of client updating testing, etc slows EC development because of split resources. Instead leave it to mainly graphical differences with the same back end and save some time.
3. Bug Fixes - This has to happen, we need Bugs Stamped out there are many that are over a decade old still floating around.
4. A real Anti-Script push that doesn't punish Non-Cheaters. Heck Reverse Engineer the popular Script engines to look for a way to break them, how do you think they managed to get them to work in the first place. Turn and Turn about I say, the first step would be upgrade the server and the client to a better data encryption method, cut out the ability for data stream injection and you've won the majority of the battle.
5. Removal of Faction Arties or Equivalent Alternatives made as easy to obtain for non-factioners - The Ease of suit building available for Factioners imbalances a PvP Arena that includes Non-Faction players. ie. Faction players can build superior suits at a fraction of the costs by combining Imbued Items, and Current Artifacts with Faction Artifacts, something Non-Faction players can't. UO has become a game where your gear is as important as your template, so at least balance it.
6. PvP Thief Luv - Trammel, Insurance etc. has made the PvP Thief a dying breed. Faction Thieves are nothing more than a crossbreed between "Deco-Thieves" PvP-Thieves and Dex Monkeys. Additional steal-able Deco Items, and Monster Stealing was an insult to those of us who enjoy the thrill of stealing from other players. Throw us a Bone Already, many of us don't like the idea of our most useful function being A) Steal a World Item and run it across the servers while avoiding getting killed by other players or B)Steal a World Item and run it across a Dungeon while avoiding getting killed by Monsters. Wait... those sound almost a like... ie. Faction Thief = Glorified Crate, trust me I have nothing against people who steal deco items, I do it myself from time to time but.... it's not the same as stealing from players and neither is stealing from monsters.
7. Drop rates for arties and 120 scrolls re-evaluated. They rarity of some of these items is simply stupid... Lavaliere is a good example. Move 110's out of Fel, add them to Tokuno, and Ilshenar spawns. Make Fel spawns only drop 115's and 120's
8. Overhaul of Legacy Dungeons to make them more Useful - Face it The critters in them just aren't worth it to 90% of players. Moongates to various facets have been open for years, how come it's only players that have been slipping through them? Well except Inu but she's a few fries short of a happy meal anyways. Mix things up, Shame is known for being full of elementals, why wouldn't Lava, Crystal and other Elemental monsters not be able to find a home there?
9. A Definitive plan to make UO attractive to New Players - This means make the EC something people will find attractive to start with.
10. Once the previous item is done, some type of marketing, even if it's a 30 day trial shipped out with other EA titles like Dragon's Age II.

 

[Thav12]

this thread is sort of funny.

list of 10 things that expand into sub headings, comprising of ultimately something like 150 things

Road signs, role playing stuff vs fixing crash to desktop. Just funny to see how people's priorities are so divergent. This notion in itself is probably why nobody is ever going to be satisfied. (unless the Escort Service is implemented, of course... ;-) )