T
Trevelyan
Guest
A post sort of mashing together the last 2 weeks of my thoughts. I miss pre-AOS, I see a lot of potential in UO still and I think the developers do still want to carry on with UO.
So, instead of making any more expansions, how about focusing on what we have now? An analogy is housing - with less players and more land being added, theres just gaps all over the place. There is too much space and too few houses.
My girlfriend recently started and had terrible difficulty becoming integrated. There are numerous skills, items and systems that have fallen out of use because of their purely novel value and are no longer really "worth" using, if they ever even could have been seen as so. A classic shard could well rope in ex players and keep current ones happy. Finally, there is plenty of artwork and landscaping that can be changed for the better, IE anything done since (and including) LBR.
The problem as I see it is that things like this require time and resources which, naturally, would be currently put into a new expansion and publishes. I strongly feel that UO has enough content for now and that any new project could bring a lot more to UO if it was to focus on enhancing what already exists, to make UO a more robust product than it already is. It is my opinion that UO already is robust but is lacking in certain areas and devoting a project, or an "expansion" to all of this could do nothing but good for UO.
So here are the things that I see are the areas that can be worked on
As for bringing old players back - all the above will do that, but some sort of incentive for returning players could help, perhaps free play on a classic shard for a month or whatever.
The above list contains many examples but the overall points are, in my opinion, the key systems that should be focused on. You could put "pvp" under a few of those headings but really, pvp is a playstyle rather than a system which is always going to be modified by the rest of the game, as is pvm or crafting. I felt it made sense to put various things into one post for this, although i'd be interested if people really did agree with the idea.
So, instead of making any more expansions, how about focusing on what we have now? An analogy is housing - with less players and more land being added, theres just gaps all over the place. There is too much space and too few houses.
My girlfriend recently started and had terrible difficulty becoming integrated. There are numerous skills, items and systems that have fallen out of use because of their purely novel value and are no longer really "worth" using, if they ever even could have been seen as so. A classic shard could well rope in ex players and keep current ones happy. Finally, there is plenty of artwork and landscaping that can be changed for the better, IE anything done since (and including) LBR.
The problem as I see it is that things like this require time and resources which, naturally, would be currently put into a new expansion and publishes. I strongly feel that UO has enough content for now and that any new project could bring a lot more to UO if it was to focus on enhancing what already exists, to make UO a more robust product than it already is. It is my opinion that UO already is robust but is lacking in certain areas and devoting a project, or an "expansion" to all of this could do nothing but good for UO.
So here are the things that I see are the areas that can be worked on
- Art
- Improve art and animations post 2001 - yes that includes the plate helmet and fancy dress backpack art that was ruined around the release of third dawn! The solution is the simplest here of course, just get in touch with Saphireena.
- Fix some broken and missing animations (platemail gorget, a few others)
- A proper new player experience
- A new player tutorial
- Fix of the broken templates (all) which give less than 100 points total
- Change what players start with to be more relevant
- Give staff/volunteers to a new player program (companions, for example)
- Have a new player only area, or disallow non youngs from entering haven again - IE stop having guild recruiters mob new players!
- Revamp or make more or less useless skills useful (again)
- Camping
- Herding
- Item ID
- Taste ID
- Forensic evaluation
- Tracking
- Remove trap
- Stealing (and not just from other players)
- Fix other systems that already exist but are either broken, unfinished or outdated. Personal favourite examples:
- Finish the virtues system
- Update the codex (applies also to a revamped new player experience)
- Make NPC hirelings useful and not have ridiculous armour
- NPC guilds
- Luna
- Give a use to items which already exist
- Blackrock in its various forms
- Oil flasks
- Oil cloths
- Daemon bone armor
- Glacial staves (their special abilities they used to have, perhaps?)
- Spyglasses
- Scales
- Various other crafted items (sure, they make good deco, but they do have a "use" that is useless)
- Beeswax
- Ophidian rations (it was said they would have a future use beyond handins)
- Make platemail better than leather armour
- A double bladed staff weighs less than a katana - something seems odd!
- Halberds and bone armour - the supposedly "best" armour and weapons in the game at one time
[*]Classic shard - 'nuff said
As for bringing old players back - all the above will do that, but some sort of incentive for returning players could help, perhaps free play on a classic shard for a month or whatever.
The above list contains many examples but the overall points are, in my opinion, the key systems that should be focused on. You could put "pvp" under a few of those headings but really, pvp is a playstyle rather than a system which is always going to be modified by the rest of the game, as is pvm or crafting. I felt it made sense to put various things into one post for this, although i'd be interested if people really did agree with the idea.
It's about time after all those expansions to concentrate on some very basic things.