UO Could Go Free to Play

[Riyana]

I have never liked the free to play model. "Free to play" is never actually free, it's more like "pay to win". One thing I liked about UO for a long time was that everyone was more or less even (though I don't think that is entirely the case any longer). One subscription, equal footing with everyone. F2P models favor players with more RL money, and I've never cared for that.

However...

UO already HAS a pay to win sort of structure... it's just not the developing company making that money. I know of many players who've returned to UO, seen how outrageous the cost of everything has become, and immediately turned to third party gold sellers, who operate freely and seemingly without consequence anymore. I know of many others who routinely buy gold just because it's easier than farming it. Or because they can't buy the supplies they need on their shard and it's cheaper than transferring to Atlantic and back if they don't have loads of shard shields. The sad fact is that a player with more RL money can easily buy the gold, resources, suits, rares, even housing, whatever, by giving their money to someone else to play UO. They didn't keep third party selling under control, and now it's practically part of the game.

To successfully implement a microtransaction system would require dismantling, or at least crippling, the thriving third party one that already exists. No F2P model will really make much difference for EA/Broadsword unless and until they start seriously cracking down on third party sellers. And they probably won't now--little seems to be truly bannable anymore outside of flagrant duping, and it seems like any active account is a "good" account. And the sellers undoubtedly represent a LOT of accounts.

F2P would greatly benefit third party sellers, but unless major changes are made within and without the game, it would be a big waste of time for EA/Broadsword, especially as people are describing it here. Keep a subscription for your housing? OK, so most established players don't change. F2P with a lot of the limitations listed here? Whatever, they'll just buy what they need from third parties and live out of bankboxes. Need more space? Make a new free account to hold stuff in the bank. That's a great business model... for the third parties.

The best thing UO could do to make more money is take a good hard look at the third parties and yank their market out from under them. Why not? People are already paying to win. Might as well pay EA/Broadsword instead of some dude with twenty scriptbots constantly running. And take a good hard look at the free shards. Some of them have microtransactions... see the kind of things they are doing.

Conversion to F2P would be very awkward anyway. An incoming F2P player, used to newer games that were designed with that model in mind, might look at a $12.99 or whatever per month cost for a house and wonder why one player's sub has a castle and they can only get an 18x18... or maybe smaller if they choose Atlantic. Should current castle owners pay a higher amount than owners of smaller homes? What about grandfathered homes? An influx of F2P players would also likely cause a whole lot of drama over vet rewards, especially the useful (as opposed to decorative only) ones. I'm sure there are tons of other issues that would arise. Point is that it would be a major shift not just in how the game is paid, but in what the majority player base values and expects, which could and would be very problematic for established players.

F2P on Test Center only is ridiculous. People would get used to setting their skills and having everything they needed dumped in their banks on demand, then once they paid to go to a real shard and had to actually work for stuff they'd laugh and quit. Test Center is for players who know the game to test changes to it. Something like a Haven shard--where the whole shard is one huge Haven, with a max total skills of maybe 500 (so they could get high in skills, but not have a full character), and where vets could transfer to and fro freely (also facilitating intershard trading and making it more accessible to more people, and so the F2P players could go back if they decided not to pay for a while) would be preferable. Make sure there are a few arenas for trying out PvP.

And no, F2P limited to Felucca is not good either--people abandoned Felucca in droves back in the day for a reason. Serving up clueless aspiring players as murder fodder will not have the effect you desire, and never did.

I agree that UO needs new blood, but I think F2P would cause more problems than it would solve. We need a MUCH better new/returning player experience. We need better customer service and account management (seriously, I'd love to know how many people have tried to come back and just given up after trying to fight with the account management system). We need Origin to fix its damn security holes already. We need better policing of griefing and cheating, better enforcement of the TOS. We need EM and global events that aren't disastrous grief parties and/or hopeless lagfests. We need better ingame communication tools (I can just see the fresh F2P transplants now... "what do you mean, no pms or mail system?!"). We need better gold management instead of the clunky check/gold pile system we currently have. Because even if UO WAS magically converted tomorrow to a perfect F2P system that both new and old players found satisfactory and enticing (ha!)... we couldn't handle a huge influx of new players the way things are now. It would be hot mess. Just look how that last Return to Britannia turned out.

 

[Lug]

Problems is, what happens to paying players who have to go inactive for a stretch? Do those characters lose skill and have to be worked up again?

This will outrage people but I was of the mind set of having vet accounts (any account that has more then 4 months) to pay for a subscription to access it. If you wanted f2p you had to make a new account and create a new character and apply the other rules to that account found in post 10 of this thread.

Like I said in another post, I was just brainstorming.

At the time my train of thought was more focused on NEW players that have never played UO before. Kind of like a trial account without the 2 week limit on game time. I tried to come up with an idea that would provided "hooks" for these new accounts to want to upgrade to a subscription account - i.e. limited skills. The limited skills also does have the added benefit of limiting many types of bots... With that said. I do like your idea of starting in fel without insurance. This does allow the current player base to police f2p automations - which I do find very healthy for the game.

 

[JC the Builder]

Sure, some will become friends with a house owner and share houses. I don't see this as a drawback. I started out sharing houses with someone and it added to the game experience.

Just because someone is free to play does not mean they are not contributing monetarily. The biggest seller would be Stygian Abyss and High Seas upgrade codes. They can also buy and use any other promotional codes. Even just being there adds to the overall game experience for paying players. Does it really matter if a paying or a free player is purchasing from your vendor?

In my opinion, there would be very few limits on unpaid accounts. They can go anywhere, do anything, gain to 120 skill points, get holiday gifts, etc. The more restrictions put in place the more you take away from game play. The big hook for paying accounts should be owning a house.

Have UO go free to play to have a bunch of players playing for free but annoying the game play of those UO players who actually spend money for their montly fee subscriptions ? NO THANKS !!

If people want to annoy you they can already do that on a free trial account. There is no "wrong kind" of player as long as they follow the game rules.

*Added*

Another thought would be to have a one time upgrade code to enable your account for free to play. You pay $5 or $10 and your account is free-to-play forever (of course you can't own a house). I would sort of be against this idea though.

 

[Lug]

I totally get what your saying link. I thought the same thing during the RTB, at first.

I don't think housing is enough of a hook for UO to go free to play. I do believe more hooks will be needed to sustain UO if such a system was in place. What if f2p is implemented (I know I hate "what if's" too) and it is a smashing success? The servers are packed again everyone is happy except - we cant move. Because all the new f2p'ers have used all of EA/BS network bandwith. I know it wont be that extreme, but bandwith does cost money. Is it fair to the subscription accounts for them to potently have to endure unwanted lag? Furthermore, is it fair for subscription accounts to have to endure all the potential negatives pointed out in this thread?

I think f2p will need more hooks to sustain UO then just housing. I also believe in limiting/structuring f2p accounts with enough hooks that will protect the current player base and provide EA/BS with enough cash flow to justify f2p to begin with.

 

[The Craftsman]

I totally get what your saying link. I thought the same thing during the RTB, at first.

I don't think housing is enough of a hook for UO to go free to play. I do believe more hooks will be needed to sustain UO if such a system was in place. What if f2p is implemented (I know I hate "what if's" too) and it is a smashing success? The servers are packed again everyone is happy except - we cant move. Because all the new f2p'ers have used all of EA/BS network bandwith. I know it wont be that extreme, but bandwith does cost money. Is it fair to the subscription accounts for them to potently have to endure unwanted lag? Furthermore, is it fair for subscription accounts to have to endure all the potential negatives pointed out in this thread?

I think f2p will need more hooks to sustain UO then just housing. I also believe in limiting/structuring f2p accounts with enough hooks that will protect the current player base and provide EA/BS with enough cash flow to justify f2p to begin with.

If F2P was as sucessful as that, to the point that it was stretching server capacity, then UO is making a lot of money and they simply open up new F2P only servers to accommodate the growing [playerbase and keep the cash flow maximised. It isnt rocket science.

 

[Lug]

If F2P was as sucessful as that, to the point that it was stretching server capacity, then UO is making a lot of money and they simply open up new F2P only servers to accommodate the growing [playerbase and keep the cash flow maximised. It isnt rocket science.

No. If the servers are packed but no one is paying for housing just leeching off other players for housing. No (extra) money is being generated. No one wins except the leeches.

 

[The Craftsman]

No. If the servers are packed but no one is paying for housing just leeching off other players for housing. No money is being generated. No one wins except the leeches.

Its not even close to being a showstopper. You cap the servers. You stop new characters being created on a shard if it reaches a certain level other than from subscription accounts. You make stand alone F2P servers. And money wouldnt just be generated by housing. A large portion of those playing for 'free' would make micropayments for whatever you made available. If they didnt then other games wouldnt survive without subscriptions but they do. In fact they thrive. Point is overpopulation on a server only becomes a problem if you allow it. There are many ways to circumvent it.

 

[Veldrane]

Its not even close to being a showstopper. You cap the servers. You stop new characters being created on a shard if it reaches a certain level other than from subscription accounts. You make stand alone F2P servers. And money wouldnt just be generated by housing. A large portion of those playing for 'free' would make micropayments for whatever you made available. If they didnt then other games wouldnt survive without subscriptions but they do. In fact they thrive. Point is overpopulation on a server only becomes a problem if you allow it. There are many ways to circumvent it.

I think you're right on the money with quite a few of your posts in this thread. The third party sites are already thriving, Broadsword should take a hard look at what they can do to get that piece of the pie without removing the ability to get those items they are selling in game as well. So you have a choice, micro-transaction or go farm it yourself.

I'd love to know what the third party sites are raking in an year & the average amount a UO player spends on them.

 

[Lug]

Its not even close to being a showstopper. You cap the servers. You stop new characters being created on a shard if it reaches a certain level other than from subscription accounts. You make stand alone F2P servers. And money wouldnt just be generated by housing. A large portion of those playing for 'free' would make micropayments for whatever you made available. If they didnt then other games wouldnt survive without subscriptions but they do. In fact they thrive. Point is overpopulation on a server only becomes a problem if you allow it. There are many ways to circumvent it.

hmmm, f2p servers would protect the current player base.
micro transactions would help the f2p model better then the housing hook.


EA/BS would have to get there crap together with the micro transactions. They are having one hell of a time with the origin store from what Ive read here on stratics. It would be nice if these hooks/micro transactions where done ingame like other games.

 

[Smoot]

No. If the servers are packed but no one is paying for housing just leeching off other players for housing. No (extra) money is being generated. No one wins except the leeches.

if there were that many f2p players, theyd be making a very good amount just from well placed adds at the f2p download page.

seriously, EA has passed up so much money by keeping UO subscription based its unbelievable. I still stick to my estimates that playerbase would at least triple, revenue would at least double.

Thats with the horrible service, lag, and bugs, with no advertising. If UO were cleaned up a bit, Good store. Good page. everything working correctly and download pages placed as adds on facebook and stuff i could see the playerbase reaching 100k at least.

 

[Lug]

if there were that many f2p players, theyd be making a very good amount just from well placed adds at the f2p download page.

seriously, EA has passed up so much money by keeping UO subscription based its unbelievable. I still stick to my estimates that playerbase would at least triple, revenue would at least double.

Thats with the horrible service, lag, and bugs, with no advertising. If UO were cleaned up a bit, Good store. Good page. everything working correctly and download pages placed as adds on facebook and stuff i could see the playerbase reaching 100k at least.

Adds and UO? Now your talking crazy!

 

[Smoot]

Adds and UO? Now your talking crazy!

you know what i mean tho? like, there are really really bad f2p games, nothing compared to UO that make tons of money just by having banners all over the place, usually with fire or a big breasted warrior type. The goal is that tons of people click the banner and play for 5 mins. maybe 1 out of 50 play for a little. all you need is some of those people to get addicted and they shell out 100s of dollars a month. always happens.

 

[Lug]

you know what i mean tho? like, there are really really bad f2p games, nothing compared to UO that make tons of money just by having banners all over the place, usually with fire or a big breasted warrior type. The goal is that tons of people click the banner and play for 5 mins. maybe 1 out of 50 play for a little. all you need is some of those people to get addicted and they shell out 100s of dollars a month. always happens.

Your right. Banner adds (found here on stratics in the past) are how I started playing: D&D Online, LOTR Online, and Neverwinter. I've spent more on Neverwinter in the past year then I have on UO. If UO would use adds we would not need a f2p thread, but rather what kind of expansion would we like instead.

 

[Uriah Heep]

hmmm, f2p servers would protect the current player base.
micro transactions would help the f2p model better then the housing hook.


EA/BS would have to get there crap together with the micro transactions. They are having one hell of a time with the origin store from what Ive read here on stratics. It would be nice if these hooks/micro transactions where done ingame like other games.

I don't believe they have the capability to make it smooth enough to draw people in when word of mouth gets aroundd about how it's run. Accout management is a horror, our "onlly buy one something at a time unless you know a lot of tricks" code store is absolutely stupid. We are pretty much caught in an endless enigma, we need more players so we can afford to fix things, but players aren't gonna be real interested in us unless we fix things. chicken and egg, ya know.

Maybe they could farm out the "transaction" part of it to someone who has proven they can handle it. To be quite honest, my transactions with <site that cannot be named> are ALWAYS infinitely smoother than dealing with EAORIGINMYTHICBROADSWORDWHO'SNEXT.

 

[The Craftsman]

I don't believe they have the capability to make it smooth enough to draw people in when word of mouth gets aroundd about how it's run. Accout management is a horror, our "onlly buy one something at a time unless you know a lot of tricks" code store is absolutely stupid. We are pretty much caught in an endless enigma, we need more players so we can afford to fix things, but players aren't gonna be real interested in us unless we fix things. chicken and egg, ya know.

Maybe they could farm out the "transaction" part of it to someone who has proven they can handle it. To be quite honest, my transactions with <site that cannot be named> are ALWAYS infinitely smoother than dealing with EAORIGINMYTHICBROADSWORDWHO'SNEXT.

I agree. The first step is to make account management and the store simple and to actually work. Make it as easy and painless as possible to pay you money. Its a no brainer. I cant believe EA or whoever cannot do this. Ive played many games that have account management pages and stores that work well. In this day in age every site that offers services can do this, in the main pretty well. Why cant EA.

 

[Tina Small]

At one point, I think a company called Digital River was running the Origin store site. However, it has been a couple of years now that you've been able to find Digital River mentioned in any of the legal agreements/documents found on the Origin site and also, Digital River's site no longer lists EA as a customer.

Both of these changes make me think that the business arrangement that once must have existed between EA and Digital River ended and EA took back managing the Origin site. If it was Digital River who actually programmed the Origin site and got it operational, then that could explain why EA seems to struggle with it today when there are problems or limitations because they don't actually have on staff the people who designed and programmed the site and are therefore reluctant to mess with it too much to fix things in case they instead just make things worse.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Yeah...too bad in this day and age a company the size of EA can't figure out how to make a store run, be it theirs or a subcontractors.

 

[Kael]

No. If the servers are packed but no one is paying for housing just leeching off other players for housing. No (extra) money is being generated. No one wins except the leeches.

You do know that people buy goodies off the donation store in current F2P shards?

Looking through this thread I see alot of people fearing that F2P will bring griefers, maybe some more speed hackers or exploiters. People can do that now and in all honesty there will probally be more. Why? Cause the shards will actually be busier with people and that is what UO players do haha
What I see on free shards are former UO players that miss different era's of the game and they flock to relive those great memories they had. They also purchase a crap load off the donation store and spend much more than 12.99 a month. If people don't wish to buy...and many don't. They just farm the gold and buy the items off players. Becomes another form of higher end currency. Again who profits from all this...EA. If people want gold now they just buy from a store...or buy a token or something and sell it to another player. What is the difference.
Limiting what players can do via F2P is almost like shooting the idea down before it even starts. Don't allow for housing...fine. But limiting skills, ability use other skills, play styles and whether they can enter just Fel or Tram is in my opinion just not wise. Just make a F2P classic shard and test it out for 6 months. If EA does not make a profit or attract the numbers during that time then shut down the project. If on the other hand it does as well as I think it would. Start to open F2P on production level shards and see the effect on them.

 

[Lug]

You do know that people buy goodies off the donation store in current F2P shards?

Looking through this thread I see alot of people fearing that F2P will bring griefers, maybe some more speed hackers or exploiters. People can do that now and in all honesty there will probally be more. Why? Cause the shards will actually be busier with people and that is what UO players do haha
What I see on free shards are former UO players that miss different era's of the game and they flock to relive those great memories they had. They also purchase a crap load off the donation store and spend much more than 12.99 a month. If people don't wish to buy...and many don't. They just farm the gold and buy the items off players. Becomes another form of higher end currency. Again who profits from all this...EA. If people want gold now they just buy from a store...or buy a token or something and sell it to another player. What is the difference.
Limiting what players can do via F2P is almost like shooting the idea down before it even starts. Don't allow for housing...fine. But limiting skills, ability use other skills, play styles and whether they can enter just Fel or Tram is in my opinion just not wise. Just make a F2P classic shard and test it out for 6 months. If EA does not make a profit or attract the numbers during that time then shut down the project. If on the other hand it does as well as I think it would. Start to open F2P on production level shards and see the effect on them.

Ya, I know that's what UO players do. I've done/do my share of questionable things... I've been playing a long time on both EA and Free shards. In fact I currently play both. Its why I proposed the limits. I figured some limits (which could be over come by paying some money) might help keep some of that out of the game once UO goes F2p. If ya'll want to do all the shady stuff in UO fine, just pay something - support the game. I do fear a poorly managed f2p system being implemented and screwing up the game to the point that I might want to play anymore and quit permanently. I fear Free accounts that add nothing to the game financially but run 24/7 doing whatever they do completely automated and unchecked.

With that said. I don't mind UO being free to play as Link purposed, I really don't. I have two castle holding accounts at the moment and another 12 inactive accounts that I'd love to access for free. Who wouldn't want that? Do I plan on spending anymore money on those accounts once UO is free to play? Nope. Will I used my other accounts? If its free, damn right and I think that's the problem that I have with free to play. If I am planning on doing that, I know many, many, other UO players will be doing the same thing. Will tokens and housing be enough to sustain UO? Will UO turn into a pay to win game? God I hope not. I already don't like the pay to win items for sale in the origin store as it is. If UO does become pay to win, will I buy pay to win items? At this point I'd say no.

You talked of a classic shard (man your brave to bring that up on these boards lol) to test the f2p. I'm not even going to touch it, but I will say I'd at lest try it out....

*runs for cover*

 

[Lythos-]

With that said. I don't mind UO being free to play as Link purposed, I really don't. I have two castle holding accounts at the moment and another 12 inactive accounts that I'd love to access for free. Who wouldn't want that? Do I plan on spending anymore money on those accounts once UO is free to play? Nope. Will I used my other accounts? If its free, damn right and I think that's the problem that I have with free to play. If I am planning on doing that, I know many, many, other UO players will be doing the same thing. Will tokens and housing be enough to sustain UO? Will UO turn into a pay to win game? God I hope not.

I also have a bunch of inactive accounts. I think it would be a major support to the community for new characters to go buying things to compete. I think all of the old content will pick up and give current players people to play with.

I hate pay to win games too but since there's no real end game in UO I don't feel bad at this. I think money could be made rather easily with frequent mini boosters, tokens and new goodies. I think that would also be good for the team to create a ton of mini content rather than releasing a motherload at once and having to sift through months worth of work to fix the bugs.

Hell, if they ever added pet dyes that alone would give a nice chunk of change.

 

[SpyderBite]

Maybe the F2P people dont want to come to a game where the pay to play players have moronic prejudices and a pretentious attitude that because they play a monthly fee then they are better than those that pay micropayments?

This is especially true since micropay customers tend to spend a lot more than subscribed customers in most current games. This is why the subscription model should be retired completely. There is way more money in microtransactions than there is in subscriptions.

 

[Kael]

Ya, I know that's what UO players do. I've done/do my share of questionable things... I've been playing a long time on both EA and Free shards. In fact I currently play both. Its why I proposed the limits. I figured some limits (which could be over come by paying some money) might help keep some of that out of the game once UO goes F2p. If ya'll want to do all the shady stuff in UO fine, just pay something - support the game. I do fear a poorly managed f2p system being implemented and screwing up the game to the point that I might want to play anymore and quit permanently. I fear Free accounts that add nothing to the game financially but run 24/7 doing whatever they do completely automated and unchecked.

With that said. I don't mind UO being free to play as Link purposed, I really don't. I have two castle holding accounts at the moment and another 12 inactive accounts that I'd love to access for free. Who wouldn't want that? Do I plan on spending anymore money on those accounts once UO is free to play? Nope. Will I used my other accounts? If its free, damn right and I think that's the problem that I have with free to play. If I am planning on doing that, I know many, many, other UO players will be doing the same thing. Will tokens and housing be enough to sustain UO? Will UO turn into a pay to win game? God I hope not. I already don't like the pay to win items for sale in the origin store as it is. If UO does become pay to win, will I buy pay to win items? At this point I'd say no.

You talked of a classic shard (man your brave to bring that up on these boards lol) to test the f2p. I'm not even going to touch it, but I will say I'd at lest try it out....

*runs for cover*

I think the term "pay to win" is misplaced. The free shards that I have visited only have décor, ethies or clothing on the donation store. Nothing earth shattering and certainly nothing that changes the balance of pvp. No skill balls, no powerscrolls, artifacts or runics. I would say that 95% of the player base is former UO players. In fact, a lot are former names that I recognize as once being UO Stratic's regulars and certainly well known, well respected players from Atlantic, LS, Baja and Siege Perilous. Currently Broadsword UO is "pay to win" with all the gold and item stores selling the very best in game items, accounts and housing.

Lug, I will also mention classic shard lol The reason is that the popular free shards are all some form of classic shards. I think it would be great to see Broadsword set up a few shards with different popular era's. Why not offer something refreshing to players, rekindle old memories of good old days, maybe even bring back players to the era that they enjoyed until the game became ruined for them. The worst thing that could happen is shards become busy again, with busy banks and old school communities popping back up.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Remember, we can have no classic shard. We were told twicee I know of that we can't, because the code doesnt exist anymore...

Funny huh. how the freesharders are able to do it tho.

Maybe we need a couple of devs, that instead of living in Fairfax, live in their mother's basement

 

[popps]

.........................................F2P would greatly benefit third party sellers............................

That's a very big concern I have..........
I would like to see gold sellers disappear from Ultima Online for good, NOT see them having a blast thanking to UO going free to play....

For me, this concern should be enough of a good reason NOT TO ever have Ultima Online go free to play.....

I agree that UO needs new blood, but I think F2P would cause more problems than it would solve. We need a MUCH better new/returning player experience. We need better customer service and account management (seriously, I'd love to know how many people have tried to come back and just given up after trying to fight with the account management system). We need Origin to fix its damn security holes already. We need better policing of griefing and cheating, better enforcement of the TOS. We need EM and global events that aren't disastrous grief parties and/or hopeless lagfests. We need better ingame communication tools (I can just see the fresh F2P transplants now... "what do you mean, no pms or mail system?!"). We need better gold management instead of the clunky check/gold pile system we currently have. Because even if UO WAS magically converted tomorrow to a perfect F2P system that both new and old players found satisfactory and enticing (ha!)... we couldn't handle a huge influx of new players the way things are now. It would be hot mess. Just look how that last Return to Britannia turned out.

I can only hope that, in this time of need, ALL of UO's revenues (that is 100%) which UO generates currently, are going to be reinvested into the game itself through development investment (nothing going elsewhere like into profits or else...) in order to achieve those needed adjustments and changes which would attract more new or returning players to UO and this, in my vision, does NOT include free to play......

 

[Uriah Heep]

Well, let BS sell gold for a cheaper price than the current sellers.

And in spite of how much people want to fuss about gold sellers, they are not the problem with the game. Personally, if I were now coming into the game and gold wasn't for sell, I probably wouldn't last long, with my 1k startup stash. If ea want to put them out of business, they need to start selling gold themselves, and create a search engine as good as theirs.

They need to quit whining and griping about others actions, and start fixing stuff good enough to compete with them, or just sit down and be quiet---if they can't do better, then everyone will continue using third party sites. It's simple business

 

[popps]

No. If the servers are packed but no one is paying for housing just leeching off other players for housing. No (extra) money is being generated. No one wins except the leeches.

And who looses ?

The monthly fee paying customers who pay money to play BUT get annoyes by a bunch of free playing players who get their fun at disrupting their game play AND, at the same one time, reduce the bandwith thus causing lag and so on....

NO THANKS !

Want to play UO ? Pay the monthly subscription fee as everyone else...........

 

[popps]

Well, let BS sell gold for a cheaper price than the current sellers.

And in spite of how much people want to fuss about gold sellers, they are not the problem with the game. Personally, if I were now coming into the game and gold wasn't for sell, I probably wouldn't last long, with my 1k startup stash. If ea want to put them out of business, they need to start selling gold themselves, and create a search engine as good as theirs.

They need to quit whining and griping about others actions, and start fixing stuff good enough to compete with them, or just sit down and be quiet---if they can't do better, then everyone will continue using third party sites. It's simple business

Unless I remember it wrongly, last I knew, selling ANY UO item, gold included (it does is a UO item...), for real money is a NO-NO and forbidden by the TOS....

Why not simply actually ENFORCE the rules set by the TOS ??

What good is a rule for, if it is not enforced ???

 

[Uriah Heep]

Unless I remember it wrongly, last I knew, selling ANY UO item, gold included (it does is a UO item...), for real money is a NO-NO and forbidden by the TOS....

Why not simply actually ENFORCE the rules set by the TOS ??

What good is a rule for, if it is not enforced ???

In a perfect world Popps... But for 15 yrs UO has demonstrated an amazing ability to turn a blind eye to some things, this being one.

If a group of you get together and name a character Colonel Angus, they will change your name.
If your guild title offends a certain ex-guild you were in, you get 72'd.

But as we have seen, it is cool to sell items (I can remember when small houses were selling for a min of $50, ) unless ther is a large outcry, duping is evidently okay, all kids of harassment, up to and including ruining player events and EM events is cool (based on the inaction I have seen about it) . We have people running around with names like Big Clint Toris and other sexually suggestive offensive names, yet that's okay. The language in chat, don't even get me started.

So yeah, when you say RoC and ToS, I snicker and laugh, as it is so rearely enforced no one is scared of it anymore.

 

[Ender]

A lot of the restrictions being talked about here are a good way to get players to play for two days then never log in again. The Old Republic gets a lot of hate for its F2P being pretty restricted and you guys are making it look like a great deal. Also F2P bringing in annoying players? They already play. And I've seen better communities in F2P games at times than general chat on my shard. Times are changing, dinosaurs.

 

[Bethany_lg]

I do not understand why so many people take the attitude that f2p players are the scum of the earth. We talk about all the things we need to limit, places they can't go, etc... When we all know it's the current group of people that are currently exploiting, scripting, etc... that are going to take advantage of the system. It's not the new blood, it'll be the same d-bags we have already.

The people who sign up for f2p games are the people playing MMOs today, excluding this latest kickstarter, "founding member" model. When D&D went free to play, they got my money first in the store, and then when i realized it would be cheaper, as a subscription.

I feel like we're coming to that point where the team needs to charge ahead, make the changes we need to grow this game, or they need to address the issue that this is it for UO. Not doom and gloom, lock the door, turn out the lights, but help the remaining players enjoy the game. Help people who are on the smaller shards move if they want to play with people. Offer smaller houses with castle like storage, so we can pack up our castles and move to the empty smaller spots available on atlantic, great lakes...somewhere that has a pulse.

 

[JC the Builder]

What if f2p is implemented (I know I hate "what if's" too) and it is a smashing success? The servers are packed again everyone is happy except - we cant move. Because all the new f2p'ers have used all of EA/BS network bandwith. I know it wont be that extreme, but bandwith does cost money.

We already know that 12 years ago the servers could handle well over 200,000 active players. There is no telling what they could do with today's hardware. If there are issues then there are solutions. They could implement server ques and caps for FTP accounts.

Bandwidth does not cost money. The hard costs of servers and bandwidth will remain unchanged (unless there are like 1 million players). The only thing that scales with the player base in any meaningful way is customer support (IE: Gamemasters). Of course if there were hundreds of thousands of active accounts again they would have to bring in more gamemaster staff.

 

[Kael]

And who looses ?

The monthly fee paying customers who pay money to play BUT get annoyes by a bunch of free playing players who get their fun at disrupting their game play AND, at the same one time, reduce the bandwith thus causing lag and so on....

NO THANKS !

Want to play UO ? Pay the monthly subscription fee as everyone else...........

omg...where do you get the idea that free shard players are griefers ?? Have you even read anything anyone has posted in this thread stating the direct opposite ? People play free shards because they like the era better or they tired of terrible customer service. This isn't 1999 where 15 year old kids play UO in their bedrooms. Since we can't mention any names google some free shards and look at how well they have done both with frequent events, invasions and promotions and customer service. They also have active staff that are paid and involved in the community. Look and see how many unique ip's are logged in and then think back to when UO was busy on all shards. People didn't leave EA because of the cheap 12.99 a month...free shard players typically spend more on their product. Perhaps if UO goes to F2P as a player I might be pissed because you "subscription" players are taking up the limited dev time that could be spent on improving our gameplay because the 'donations:" are much more lucrative.

 

[Spock's Beard]

"Dur hur hur, if UO went F2P it might get players and we all don't want that, right?"

Jesus Christ.

 

[azmodanb]

im all for more players... why i moved to atl..on my return...

i enjoy seeing people even if i don't always say hi... it is an mmorpg...

BUT.. and i don't understand this... but players that wanna play on there dead shard... when they dont see anyone for weeks on end.. that is not UO for me.

I am a huge supporter for shard mergers.. east and west coast... usa.... maybe a central..

Asian and euro.. (don't know if there is an east and west... ha )

screw my house.. give me a box to toss my crap in.. and ill place another.

 

[Gidge]

Subscription Server
Can do everything

F2P Server
Can do everything at a price

If it is that simple, then let's do it.

We could have the old Companion System come back and help players on the new shard(s). Bring back the walk through/follow the footsteps on how to begin in UO. But PLEASE have a support system in place for them. Have UO.com be a place for information. Not dissing any hard put together sites including but not limited to Stratics, but the website that has the name should be the go to for information.

Have the monies that come in though first and foremost be for for someone to stop the gold/item sellers (cause that is gonna be a full time job).

Coupled with the simple publishing of a mini update that breaks the UM programs for all servers ***daily!*** and we'll be good to go. I want this regardless...

Start with one server.

The current team would have to make a big push to get things set in place before hanging out the open sign.

 

[The Zog historian]

Well, let BS sell gold for a cheaper price than the current sellers.

And in spite of how much people want to fuss about gold sellers, they are not the problem with the game. Personally, if I were now coming into the game and gold wasn't for sell, I probably wouldn't last long, with my 1k startup stash. If ea want to put them out of business, they need to start selling gold themselves, and create a search engine as good as theirs.

They need to quit whining and griping about others actions, and start fixing stuff good enough to compete with them, or just sit down and be quiet---if they can't do better, then everyone will continue using third party sites. It's simple business

You're forgetting about dupers. Even if Broadsword tries undercutting gold sellers, there will be no reason for the current dupers to stop, whether they directly sell gold or sell it to gold sellers, because dupers have a very low marginal cost. And if we think there's inflation now, there will be far more when players can legitimately and easily buy 10 billion gold on a whim. UO was bad enough when some of us dropped $500 on a single Doom artifact, when they were new, to remain competitive in PvP. I don't want to see it become a game where the constant influx of new gold, and resulting rising prices, means a regular player must put in another $10 or $20 every week to buy his own gold, compounding the inflation. Let's say a cap is placed on what an individual IP can buy every 24 hours. Then gold dupers and gold sellers will keep on.

To help new players, I'd have the first character on a brand-new account, and only that first character, start with 25 million gold in the bank. That amount is considerably less than what $13 could buy at what I hear are current market prices, eliminating any incentive for someone to create a new account for that gold, while helping out new players. (Maybe this could also apply to an account that was dormant for over 12 months, though that would require a tie-in to the billing system like RTB does.) A gump upon first login can explain the one-time offer, with a warning to not trust "helpful" players offering to transfer gold to other characters, and it can be dismissed only after two "Are you sure you don't want to learn about your starting gold"/"Are you really sure" confirmations. For that kind of money, someone can easily place a 7x7 just out of a Trammel town, instead of like the old old days when some of us hid gold behind an inn's walls.

 

[The Zog historian]

Unless I remember it wrongly, last I knew, selling ANY UO item, gold included (it does is a UO item...), for real money is a NO-NO and forbidden by the TOS....

Why not simply actually ENFORCE the rules set by the TOS ??

What good is a rule for, if it is not enforced ???

How do you determine that someone's meeting a gold seller in the game, or receiving gold from a friend? How do you determine that someone isn't getting a certain item as a gift, or after having paid gold on another shard, instead of trading ICQs and paying via Paypal? There isn't a way to judge intent. Therefore, EA's only viable fight is against the selling sites. However, were EA to go after these sites, it would never recoup the cost of IT and legal man-hours. They'd sooner shut down the game. It was different with eBay, which was extremely cooperative, but think of what it would take for EA to gather data, submit subpoenas and solicit legal injunctions, only for a site to pop up elsewhere.

 

[The Craftsman]

And who looses ?

The monthly fee paying customers who pay money to play BUT get annoyes by a bunch of free playing players who get their fun at disrupting their game play AND, at the same one time, reduce the bandwith thus causing lag and so on....

NO THANKS !

Want to play UO ? Pay the monthly subscription fee as everyone else...........

So make F2P only shards. This way the F2P players wouldnt impact on the "paying customers" on the production shards. This will bring income into the game and keep the 'distruptive' low lifes from ruining your game experience.

Now .... anything else you'd like to try and throw in to keep your dying game in the dark ages?

 

[The Craftsman]

Ok, question for all those opposed to or who have doubts about F2P ...

It seems the main reasons for opposition are that it will attract the 'wrong type of players', attract more griefers and dupers and scripters. That it will interfere with your gameplay.

If EA were to create self funding F2P servers would you still have objections?

This would mean that no F2P player could create a character on an existing production shard. There would be no transfer to or from the free shard. Using this model EA could put anything and everything they wished up for sale for RL cash using micropayments.

This would mean that whatever happened on the shard would have zero impact on you. However it would generate income into the game. Income that could be used to fund the dev time and support needed for the free shard so again not even impacting how much dev time would be given to production shards.

Would anyone still have any objections at all?

 

[Lythos-]

Ok, question for all those opposed to or who have doubts about F2P ...

It seems the main reasons for opposition are that it will attract the 'wrong type of players', attract more griefers and dupers and scripters. That it will interfere with your gameplay.

If EA were to create self funding F2P servers would you still have objections?

This would mean that no F2P player could create a character on an existing production shard. There would be no transfer to or from the free shard. Using this model EA could put anything and everything they wished up for sale for RL cash using micropayments.

This would mean that whatever happened on the shard would have zero impact on you. However it would generate income into the game. Income that could be used to fund the dev time and support needed for the free shard so again not even impacting how much dev time would be given to production shards.

Would anyone still have any objections at all?

I'd rather see the subs end for everyone. I think it would be fair to do a trial run on a dead shard and just see if going F2P would be the answer to the missing playerbase.

 

[Wenchkin]

If there was a shard that was just for F2P and we could at least transfer characters in to it, that would make it appealing. I'd happily transfer in and stay there. I'm not sure I'd want to start my tamers from scratch and leave their old pets behind, but it's doable if necessary. It would certainly appeal more to me if they were able to open up all game content on that shard under F2P because it was isolated. And it saves us F2Pers from having to mix with the subscribing griefers, dupers etc *grin*... I think it would be interesting to see how a F2P community turned out.

Wenchy

 

[Magdalene]

If it went F2P I would reactivate an account ot two to hang out with some old friends in game.
For the time being I'll stick to facebook and other means...

 

[Joshua Ravenloft]

'Problems is, what happens to paying players who have to go inactive for a stretch? Do those characters lose skill and have to be worked up again?'

Damn that takes me back! I'm old enough to remember when this actually DID happen in UO. If you didn't use a skill it decayed over time... UO was hard back then, no up and down stat and skill arrows/locks. If you accidentally used a skill that wasn't trained, and was maxed out on skill points, you'd lose a point from another skill (99% of the time it was the most important and hard one) - you THEN had to retrain that skill to regain the lost point!

 

[Ender]

Ending your subscription won't drop skills, won't lower caps for skills you've already got power scrolls for, just don't let you raise caps any further. Maybe drop the total cap to 700, don't let you raise skills above 700 without a purchase, but don't take away the 20 you may have exceeded it by. Done, simple.

700 total skill cap, 100 skill cap for F2P with one time purchase to raise to 720 and another to get the ability to use powerscrolls. Subscribers get both automatically, not losing anything moving to F2P, and F2P players aren't stupidly limited. One-time purchases can be by account, shard or character. Usually by character in other games.

 

[The Zog historian]

Damn that takes me back! I'm old enough to remember when this actually DID happen in UO. If you didn't use a skill it decayed over time... UO was hard back then, no up and down stat and skill arrows/locks. If you accidentally used a skill that wasn't trained, and was maxed out on skill points, you'd lose a point from another skill (99% of the time it was the most important and hard one) - you THEN had to retrain that skill to regain the lost point!

Uncontrolled kill atrophy was one of the most frustrating designs, and it took just over two full years after UO's debut to get skill locks (and a few more for stat locks). The priority for which skill would go down seemed to be reset on login, so once getting a character into the world, the first things to do were fire off an arrow, cast a fire field and walk through it, and so on. And remember "learn by watching," which incentivized griefers to light campfires around banks?

 

[Elden of Baja]

Stygian abyss needs to be included. Everything after Stygian should require a paid account. (High Seas, And anything else to come). Housing should be restricted to paid accounts. Other than that, there shouldn't be a cap on skills, resources, quests, etc done by the accounts.

The Goal is to get more Players playing the game.

It obviously makes enough money to keep afloat. The people who have houses will probably still Pay to keep them. Why not fill this desolate game with players.

"OH but then everyone will open 10,000 accounts for scripting and there won't be any actual players"
- Let the Gm's and Developers take care of their job.
- Probably much easier on the mind to ban an account that's free.
- Don't think back when the game was populated people were botting?
- Quit the game and go join all the other bot free Mmorpgs that don't have gold sellers.

 

[Ender]

High Seas and any other expansions or boosters should remain as they are now, not only available to paid accounts. Maybe give a bit of a discount to paid subscribers.

 

[Joshua Ravenloft]

Uncontrolled kill atrophy was one of the most frustrating designs, and it took just over two full years after UO's debut to get skill locks (and a few more for stat locks). The priority for which skill would go down seemed to be reset on login, so once getting a character into the world, the first things to do were fire off an arrow, cast a fire field and walk through it, and so on. And remember "learn by watching," which incentivized griefers to light campfires around banks?

Camp fires around the banks.... Now that does take me back.... We've been in this game a loooooooong time my friend - you get less years for murder in RL lol

 

[The Zog historian]

Most players today don't realize how relatively "undeveloped" a game UO was for its first few years, and how vastly it's improved. When some want a "classic" shard, I have to wonder if they remember what the old days were really like. Even as late as T2A's debut (late 1998) didn't have secure housing, let alone skill locks.

 

[Stubentiger]

Undeveloped?
Until wow the first polished mmo, mmos were work in progress.
AOS introduced over a 1000 bugs!

Still the basic mmo concepts of then had more soul than most what came after wow.

Blizzard doing a sandbox would be very interesting