What SHOULD have been done with the Abyss.

[Tomas_Bryce]

Go ahead...flame away.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

 

[phantus]

I love ya to death Mr Pike but honestly the most grief comes from those who pvm in trammel. There's a general attitude among pvmers that you don't see in Fel.

I'm glad I have never played on these Trammel grief shards I'm always hearing about. I know these people exist but I can count 10 feluccans that come out of the woodword to grief people in trammel events(when they occur the once or twice a year) for the first 3 days to the 1 trammel guy that thinks he's something and wants to show his ass. To say most of the grief comes from PvM players is interesting to say the least.

 

[the 4th man]

Well, I'm not on everyones ignore list, so I'll post anyways......What could have been isn't.

Some players fail to grasp the idea of not wanting to deal with idiots. That's why we have trammel, which, btw, was created along time ago on the console games of Ultima.....the concept was nothing new.

I don't mind ingrates, as long as I can straighten them out personally, and not hiding behind a computer. I love UO, I just don't want to be forced into doing things some other persons way. Thus I live in America.....well, most of my actions aren't limited.

Uo is what it is,(a game) ......lighten up Morgana

 

[Connor_Graham]

Tell me exactly where the risk is then?

What exactly are you risking?

When it's possible to solo even the toughest creatures, where is the challenge?

Not everyone is capable of soloing "the toughest creatures". If everyone could do it then prices on a lot of things would be a hell of a lot lower than they are now. As far as risk, it's the exact same one you face in Fel, getting killed. It's just that in Tram you get killed without the attitude, and can kick back and just enjoy yourself in peace.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Tell me exactly where the risk is then?

What exactly are you risking?

When it's possible to solo even the toughest creatures, where is the challenge?

Its possible for SOME few people to solo the toughest creatures, but that is by far not how it is for the vast majority of players, far from it.

Risking the same as in PvP...insurance, time, lots of bandages, ammo, petals, gear and gold accumulated, and sometimes things not insured because of various oversights. It can be fairly timeconsuming and sometimes costly to die.

 

[Yalp]

IMHO, the great thing about the Abyss as it currently is.. there is something for everyone! You don't have to be a fighter.. you can steal/mine. You can be red, Champ Spawn Primevil Lich and uhh.. other one... *Hee*, you can farm for imbuing ingredients with most pvm templates. There are new peerless. There are new quests.

 

[ChReuter]

People know that I am no fan of a split world (Tram/Fel), but since we have it, I think the devs should have done the following when they opened the Abyss:

- Reds would have been offered a reprieve. They could go freely to and from any facet.

- The ones that continued to murder after the reprieve would have been condemned to the Abyss.

- Fel would no longer be a PvP area.

- The Abyss would be full open PvP with no consequences (I mean, you are already condemned to hell right?) And full looting, no insurance.

- Only reds would be able to place housing in the Abyss, and that would be limited to pre-made styles that could not serve as turret houses. These houses would look like prison cells.

This way, those that wanted to go and get their new uberness in the SA areas would have to suck it up and deal with a little risk.

What is the point of having the Abyss if it is just another goodie-two shoes area? rolleyes:

Go ahead...flame away.

Even though I don't really agree with this idea, please keep the ideas coming.
Not every idea will be agreed on by the majority but that's just how it is. Most of what you write I agree with at least somewhat and I'd rather have a lot of bad ideas and a few good ones rather than none at all.

Charles Reuter [TWT]

 

[Tanivar]

The best scenario would be a land that was an area with an entrance on ANY shard. Then players from any shard could converge for control of the land.

This would be a great idea! Create an Ilsh like landmass with no housing allowed and gates to each shard scattered around it. Full PvP. All the PvPers scattered over 29 shards would be able to get together and have anything from single combat to massive wars.

No player can use the gate to any shard other than the one to his home shard. There would need to be an arrival safe area a few tiles around a gate to prevent arriving dead and perhaps a way to use a 'stuck option' style teleportation to a random point in the land to get past gankers camped at a gate. Leaving via your home shard gate restores your life. If killed within so many tiles of your home gate, your items all go with your ghost. This would make gate-sitting to gank players arriving or leaving unprofitable.

Items would indeed be a problem. I imagine every item on a shard is numbered somehow for the system and there would be dup numbers to deal with, but the big question would be loot. Could people take home what they've won in combat? There would also be people using the land to move items between shards but it would be a dangerous trip I imagine.
I'd say have loot be items only (no insurance here). No gold comes into or leaves this Land.

 

[UOKaiser]

I love ya to death Mr Pike but honestly the most grief comes from those who pvm in trammel. There's a general attitude among pvmers that you don't see in Fel.

Edit: I should say that I am not a fan of Morgana's idea either, but to say that it would be a playground for griefers.... well it's already that.

No No. Players who strictly play in trammel don't grief. You need a pvp,kill or be killed attitude to do such things. Which you see in trammel often from FEl players who enter trammel to pvm knowing that the so called trammies cant do anything to stop them.

 

[WarUltima]

No No. Players who strictly play in trammel don't grief. You need a pvp,kill or be killed attitude to do such things. Which you see in trammel often from FEl players who enter trammel to pvm knowing that the so called trammies cant do anything to stop them.

Hmm... really...
I know plenty of people who strictly play in trammel that massively script the living crap out of UO because people couldnt stop them in tram (and they use some of the most refined scripts to notify them when GM msg shows up). And they also GRIEF the living **** out of other players who happens to be farming/playing nearby invading "his territory" down in some of the most popular spots.

If anything tram is the safest grifers/scripter/hackers paradise. Simply because they get rewarded with rare expensive items at an inhuman rate as long as they can reply to the GMs. In fel, they would have been schooled instantly on "his very own territory".

 

[UOKaiser]

Hmm... really...
I know plenty of people who strictly play in trammel that massively script the living crap out of UO because people couldnt stop them in tram (and they use some of the most refined scripts to notify them when GM msg shows up). And they also GRIEF the living **** out of other players who happens to be farming/playing nearby invading "his territory" down in some of the most popular spots.

If anything tram is the safest grifers/scripter/hackers paradise. Simply because they get rewarded with rare expensive items at an inhuman rate as long as they can reply to the GMs. In fel, they would have been schooled instantly on "his very own territory".

Though they would have to be attended to grief so that would defeat the purpose of using a unattended script. Don't know hackers being used in UO they would have all our accounts by now and our bank accounts drained. At the very least they would move haven to fel yew gate with zillions of gold checks littering the ground. Scammers yea plenty of them many do it on the guise of being a thief and wanting to rob in trammel. Unattended Scripters sure. Griefers though mainly come from fel or young kids that prefer to torture other players which are attracted to the no hold bars fel offers them,they have the attitude needed to do that. In trammel we all know no one fights another creature that another is fighting or take over a spawn spot that another is at without politely asking and if said no to that player just moves on and come back later. In fel only the strong survive so either you say yes or they fight over it. If a fel with this mind set came to trammel and do the same thing then the fel will be consider a griefter. If a trammel player came to fel with his mind set he would be considered dead.

As well in trammel players mind there own business we dont care how strong the other guy is or what he has or what he can do we look at it like cool how can I do that. In fel it's all about what the other guy can do or is doing and the thought is Dam how can I stop him. Now cross these mind sets in the different worlds and we have things considered normal in fel become greifting in Tram and we have things considered normal in tram become whats that popular term fel have for tram yea carebears thats it.

 

[WarUltima]

Since they have script to do whatever they are doing nonstop they simply grief others for 10 minutes and people move on and they can go back to script for another 10 hours.

You are living in denial if you believe tram players aren't one of the biggest groups of grifers and hackers.

And even if they dont grief and you are killing "their" spawns that still wont stop them... can you farm at their spots for 23.5 hours per day? They sure can.

It's funny how people say the only discrimination comes from fel yet tram is quite possibly the worst.

Answer me a question... someone is blatantly scripting in tram for 23 hours a day and can have his script to reply to GM and log them off (and log back on and continue after an hour or so) automatically if anything should happen... what can you do to stop such a grief?

I can give you an answer without thinking if the same scripter is doing the same **** in Fel. (which they wont, thats why they are 100% pure dedicated tram players)

 

[Tina Small]

See now, here's the problem...

The game has become so sanitised and segmented, that even the thought of a non-PvP'er dying to a predominantly PvP'er, is simply too abhorrent to think about for a lot of players.

I helped organise a joint guild hunt with two of the largest guilds on Great Lakes, to do the Primeval Lich spawn once. We gathered more than thirty players... more than three full parties... and we're shown the door by a team no more than five well organised red PK'ers.

As soon as the PK's raided, most of our group, outnumbering the PK's by six or seven to one, simply fled. Well organised as the PK group was, they simply picked off the running players. I and and a few others stood and fought, but most simply gave up.

It's probably one of the most embarrassing things I've witnessed in all my UO time. Players outside complaining they were killed, complaining they would have lost a lot of insurance gold, that the PK'ers were cheating... etc...

If just half of those players had stood their ground, be they PvP'ers or not, the group would likely have seen off the reds, or at the very least, held them off and protected the main spawn area until its completion.

Now I'm no great PvP'er by any means. My connection to Great Lakes was poor, I'm talking latency of over 400ms. But I did stand my ground, along with too few others. I just found it frankly shocking how so many players were more concerned at their "loss" or potential loss, than to face some actual challenge.

Even more interesting to note, was those who attended, only accounted for less than one eighth of the overall numbers of the two guilds combined, who were usually online at the time of the hunt. Many simply didn't want to attend something that involved the Fel ruleset area, viewing it with almost the same distaste as handling a lump of turd with your bare hands!

Perhaps it's just me and a minority of players who actually like a challenge I guess. Fighting only the same static creatures with the same limited AI, just gets tiresome after a while. I'm no PvP'er by any means. Far from it, but I just think the game has become too one-dimensional and that far too much, has been taken away from the challenge of the game.

I don't want to play The SIMS ONLINE with monsters, where everything is nice and shiny, with cushions and nice carpets. My characters being killed every so often or losing stuff, isn't (or wasn't before the item dependency of AoS) a problem.

Does nobody here want risk vs. reward any more? Just the reward?

Shall we just sit here, hold hands and sing "Kum ba yah"

Evlar, we all play UO for different reasons. What you find enjoyable and challenging in UO may be too stimulating or stressful for someone else to enjoy.

If someone who plays UO has a tough family or work situation, it may very well be that the last thing they want to do is log on to UO and set themselves up for the possibility of having to take abuse from a nameless, faceless bully using the Internet as their avenue to find more "victims." If they have little or no PvP experience, are disabled or have medical conditions, are just getting older and have slower reaction times, and/or don't have top-of-the-line gaming gear, they may also feel ill-equipped for PvP.

You will probably never know exactly why many people in UO don't engage in PvP. And if you assume most of the time that people don't do it because they are "cowards" or are afraid to "die" at another person's hands, I believe you're making a mistake.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

It's funny...I got exactly the responses I expected to get, from exactly the people I expected to get them from.

Go figure.

 

[Yalp]

You will probably never know exactly why many people in UO don't engage in PvP. And if you assume most of the time that people don't do it because they are "cowards" or are afraid to "die" at another person's hands, I believe you're making a mistake.

/agreed.

 

[UOKaiser]

Since they have script to do whatever they are doing nonstop they simply grief others for 10 minutes and people move on and they can go back to script for another 10 hours.

You are living in denial if you believe tram players aren't one of the biggest groups of grifers and hackers.

And even if they dont grief and you are killing "their" spawns that still wont stop them... can you farm at their spots for 23.5 hours per day? They sure can.

It's funny how people say the only discrimination comes from fel yet tram is quite possibly the worst.

Answer me a question... someone is blatantly scripting in tram for 23 hours a day and can have his script to reply to GM and log them off (and log back on and continue after an hour or so) automatically if anything should happen... what can you do to stop such a grief?

I can give you an answer without thinking if the same scripter is doing the same **** in Fel. (which they wont, thats why they are 100% pure dedicated tram players)

That wouldn't be consider a grief. I would probably never know about it unless am next to him 23.5hours a day myself in turn me being the griefter on him as he isn't stoping me from doing anything in game and I in turn will be stopping him using my own ideals as the basis or justification of reason to interup this player or could be bots game play.
Of course there are days I play 23.5 hours it's rare but if i didn't play for a whole week I have to dedicate a day for it. Either that be crafting,mining,lumberjacking,bods,or pvm though many of these things am losing interest in as the amount of work does not justify my efforts anymore and I use macros to do what I do. I can repeat a action the whole day by just pressing 1 button and the mouse here and there on one screen while I watch movies on tv and read the internet on my other screen. "You should see my set up ,42inch HDTV plus QUAD MONITORS "all set up in a circle so i can multitask with work play and research though am sure thats nothing compare to others here, so im in no place to justify who is or not doing what. Though there are rude players everywhere. Just certain gameplay favors certain crowds.

Either way to stay on topic Abyss being fel only would pretty much be in control by a group of players or alliances especially on low pop shards.

 

[Tanivar]

You will probably never know exactly why many people in UO don't engage in PvP. And if you assume most of the time that people don't do it because they are "cowards" or are afraid to "die" at another person's hands, I believe you're making a mistake.

/agreed.

/agreed

 

[Tina Small]

It's funny...I got exactly the responses I expected to get, from exactly the people I expected to get them from.

Go figure.

Hmmm. I responded to your first post with an honest answer. Your response seemed to be sarcasm. I responded to Evlar's post with what I felt was an honest answer. Your reaction to that post of mine seems to be additional sarcasm.

I am beginning to feel that you aren't really interested in my feedback, Morgana! Would you care to take my response to Evlar and perhaps discuss it, point by point? Do you think my points are invalid or do you have another problem with what I said?

 

[Cetric]

I had more problems hunting in tram than I ever did in fel. At least in fel if someone was griefing you, you could actually take care of the problem (the person) in tram you had to page a GM and wait 17 years for a canned reply.

SOMEONE WHO GETS IT!

 

[Darknat]

I still think it would have been cool. I fully understand that bulk of the playerbase and I disagree on a great many things, but the Abyss...as I have always understood it...was supposed to be a place of Chaos and such.

Oh well...typical responses for Uhall so far.

First some backstory

The Stygian Abyss was originally a place where Wizards of the six circle (nothing to do with the circles of magic we got in game now), went to earn their title of Adept.

Then it became just another dungeon, but it connected with the "Underworld" which is now called Termur, and the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom was actually at TerMur (at the Shrine of Singularity if memory serves), not at the Abyss.

The Stygian Abyss we got in UO comes directly from the one from Ultima Underworld, which was even a better place than it used to be because it had an established colony who followed the virtues (sort of).

For some reason in UO we got the Abyss and Underworld names swapped (well, to be exact, both places should be called Stygian Abyss, and then TerMur should be the Underworld).



Well, getting on topic. I get your point of getting more risk in the gameplay, I would also like that (that probably would make me have my accounts active all the time instead of playing from time to time).

The problem is that UO's original idea was to let players do justice in the world, but they lack the tools to do so. Even if a blue player defeats a red one, the red one will come back with no drawbacks at all. So that gives them a freedom that would let them just do whatever they want in game.

I'm not asking for permanent death or anything like that, but there is need for somekind of way so that players can actually do something against murderers.

Letting them have that kind of freedom you suggest against Trammel people when they are at the Abyss would just make less people play there. And also if they had the freedom of killing without insurance, they would go there just to farm other players and leave most of the other places in Felucca deserted (well... more deserted than they already are).


So, to sum up, very few people from Trammel would actually like it, and the people from Felucca will probably just go to the abyss and leave all other places deserted.


The best thing would be a shard like Siege, but with some way to actually do something against mudereres, thiefs and everything (not that this would ever happen, because PvP would get a bit more complcated and people will just complain that they have less freedom than before).

 

[phantus]

It's funny...I got exactly the responses I expected to get, from exactly the people I expected to get them from.

Go figure.

As you should have with the way you posted the initial post. It's the same position on the same issue you have been preaching about since out of SA beta. Therefore, you get the same responses from the same people on their same stance.

So was it a waste of your time or were you proving a point? Snide ass comments like that have to lead somewhere right? That's not to say I'm below trolling my own thread but it's just an observation.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Hmmm. I responded to your first post with an honest answer. Your response seemed to be sarcasm. I responded to Evlar's post with what I felt was an honest answer. Your reaction to that post of mine seems to be additional sarcasm.

I am beginning to feel that you aren't really interested in my feedback, Morgana! Would you care to take my response to Evlar and perhaps discuss it, point by point? Do you think my points are invalid or do you have another problem with what I said?

Tina, it's not that I am not interested in your feedback, it's just that I am already fully aware of your position concerning PvP and risk vs. reward.

Do I want to disect your response to Evlar? Seems to me that should be up to Evlar to do.

No offense here, but it is obvious that most Trammel players do not want to take any risk of losing anything...ever. That's why the game's economy is so horribly broken. People start discussions about gold sinks. The best gold sink in the game should be that players could involuntarily lose things. Not only would it provide an excellent gold sink, but it would also add more challenge to the game.

This is the problem I have with current UO. The players feel that they should never, ever, have to risk losing anything...that they should simply go and collect more and more and more things unfettered. Doesn't that ever just bore the ever loving hell out of you guys?? Seriously?

This isn't about PvP or PvM, it's about risk. It's about losing things because sometimes those risks don't work out. We, as in all current UO players, have gotten soft. We have Trammel, item insurance, etc. There is no more challenge in this game. Even PvP has gotten stale and rote and becomes an equation based on items and who has the best scripts and cheat programs.

Current UO has turned into a Line Ride. What does that mean? Basically a Line Ride is where you wait in a line just for the sake of waiting in the line. At the end of the line, there is only another line, that leads to another line...and so on and so forth.

The Devs need to make some changes to UO because that kind of system is not going to be able to retain player interest forever. You may not see it now, none of you may see it right now, but slowly...people are seeing it. I have finally seen it, and I know others who have as well. The result...the game is losing players.

Without trying to insult anyone, and without anyone insulting me...just answer the following question as honestly as possible:

Do you feel that UO provides an adequate challenge vs. the rewards you get in the game?

Before you answer, consider the following:

- Since SA was released, how many times have you died in game?
- When you did die, what did you really lose?
- How much gold would you say you have in your banks on all of your characters?
- Would you say that your overall 'net-worth' in game has gone up, or down since SA launched?
- What exactly pushes you to want to PvM in the new areas? Is it the items you can collect? Exploration? Just something new?

I am not here to judge anyone on their answers, but I think that anyone that is being perfectly honest with themselves will admit that all risk was removed from this game when insurance was introduced.

Even in the early Trammel days, one could still lose their stuff...it was rare, but it could happen. Since those days have gone away, look at the sheer amount of things you have as a player now. Is that really what this game is about...hording?

If it is, sadly, I think I am done with it.

 

[Llewen]

I like full loot environment games. I've played more than one. But UO is no longer a game that works well with a full loot rules set. A classic shard would, but the UO we know now simply wouldn't. Putting together a killer suit is a huge part of the fun in UO, and it takes a long time, and a lot of effort to do it (unless of course you are simply willing to throw $$ at it, but that is your choice).

Having the possibility that a suit that might have taken you years to put together could be lost, because you are ganked by twenty reds, or you lag or lose connection, not to mention simply being outplayed, would destroy UO for many subscribers - which I am sure is at least part of the point of this entire thread.

One of the drawbacks to a full loot rules set is down time. The average player will spend a lot of time farming for gold or resources, or crafting to replace lost equipment. One of the good things about UO is that if you die you can be back in the action fairly quickly. Sometimes full loot isn't as much fun as it sounds like it should be.

There are options out there now for people looking for an MMO with a full loot rules set. If that is what you are looking for, I suggest you go check them out.

 

[HD2300]

"This way, those that wanted to go and get their new uberness in the SA areas would have to suck it up and deal with a little risk.

What is the point of having the Abyss if it is just another goodie-two shoes area?"

An Abyss does exist like this.. Its called Siege Perilous, you know, the place that you dont play.

pwnd

Ouch.

Yet Another Epic Fail.

"Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I like full loot environment games. I've played more than one. But UO is no longer a game that works well with a full loot rules set. A classic shard would, but the UO we know now simply wouldn't. Putting together a killer suit is a huge part of the fun in UO, and it takes a long time, and a lot of effort to do it (unless of course you are simply willing to throw $$ at it, but that is your choice).

Having the possibility that a suit that might have taken you years to put together could be lost, because you are ganked by twenty reds, or you lag or lose connection, not to mention simply being outplayed, would destroy UO for many subscribers - which I am sure is at least part of the point of this entire thread.

One of the drawbacks to a full loot rules set is down time. The average player will spend a lot of time farming for gold or resources, or crafting to replace lost equipment. One of the good things about UO is that if you die you can be back in the action fairly quickly. Sometimes full loot isn't as much fun as it sounds like it should be.

There are options out there now for people looking for an MMO with a full loot rules set. If that is what you are looking for, I suggest you go check them out.

It's not even about PvP...or even "full loot" for that matter...just that fact that when you die in UO now, it means basically nothing. Insurance is a joke to people that have billions of gold (even multi-millions)...hence, there is no risk.

 

[Darknat]

I still think it would have been cool. I fully understand that bulk of the playerbase and I disagree on a great many things, but the Abyss...as I have always understood it...was supposed to be a place of Chaos and such.

Oh well...typical responses for Uhall so far.

I like full loot environment games. I've played more than one. But UO is no longer a game that works well with a full loot rules set. A classic shard would, but the UO we know now simply wouldn't. Putting together a killer suit is a huge part of the fun in UO, and it takes a long time, and a lot of effort to do it (unless of course you are simply willing to throw $$ at it, but that is your choice).

Having the possibility that a suit that might have taken you years to put together could be lost, because you are ganked by twenty reds, or you lag or lose connection, not to mention simply being outplayed, would destroy UO for many subscribers - which I am sure is at least part of the point of this entire thread.

One of the drawbacks to a full loot rules set is down time. The average player will spend a lot of time farming for gold or resources, or crafting to replace lost equipment. One of the good things about UO is that if you die you can be back in the action fairly quickly. Sometimes full loot isn't as much fun as it sounds like it should be.

There are options out there now for people looking for an MMO with a full loot rules set. If that is what you are looking for, I suggest you go check them out.

As you said, that's because current UO is like it is now. Back in the day, you could die and lose everything, but you could also get a new armor quite fast and you could get back in the action in no time.

Problem right now with that is that the game has a lot of artifacts and special items, and if you lose your artifacts, getting them back is way more expensive than it used to be.

And if we get rid of insurance now, then people won't use their artifacts so often because they will lose them....

 

[Tina Small]

Without trying to insult anyone, and without anyone insulting me...just answer the following question as honestly as possible:

Do you feel that UO provides an adequate challenge vs. the rewards you get in the game?

Before you answer, consider the following:

- Since SA was released, how many times have you died in game?
- When you did die, what did you really lose?
- How much gold would you say you have in your banks on all of your characters?
- Would you say that your overall 'net-worth' in game has gone up, or down since SA launched?
- What exactly pushes you to want to PvM in the new areas? Is it the items you can collect? Exploration? Just something new?

Since SA was released, I think I've had characters die about once every 10-14 days, if not more often. The most frequent occurrence is when I go do a champ spawn in Fel. I always die. A lot.

I can't recall really losing much of anything.

Gold on hand among all my character is around 192 million spread out among about 190 characters on all 26 shards. That's an increase of maybe 7 or 8 million since SA was launched and it took me about five and a half years of playing continuously to amass that amount. I have no idea what the houses and gear my characters own are worth. I don't own any castles and the two keeps I have are on shards where the population is so low it was easy for me or a guildmate to place them. Most of the arties and gear my characters own are laughably old and out of date. Faction arties number two and one has never left the bankbox where I plunked it within minutes of getting it. Pets...eh, I try to tame the best I can find but again, I doubt that more than a handful of the pets fall on the high end of the "uberness" scale.

I'm not really into collecting "items." Stuff that everyone can get and that is actually useful and not just deco, sure I'll usually eventually get around to trying to acquire it. But being the first to have something and hoping it turns out to be "rare"...meh, I just don't care that much because all of it's just pixels.

When there's an expansion, my greatest enjoyment comes from actually getting out and looking at what the developers, designers, and world builders actually created. I enjoy seeing what they put together and trying to figure out why they did things the way they did. If they put in something that I'm meant to interact with, sure I'll eventually take the challenge and if I enjoy the process, I'll probably go back for as long as it's still entertaining for me. The same goes for paying my UO subscription fees. If UO continues to feel like its providing me with good entertainment value for what I spend, I'll keep paying and playing. When it gets to the point where I don't log in enough to justify the fees, I'll stop playing and paying.

 

[phantus]

I am not here to judge anyone on their answers, but I think that anyone that is being perfectly honest with themselves will admit that all risk was removed from this game when insurance was introduced.

How can someone be honest with themselves and yet come to the come to the same conclusion you have even if they feel differently? You think you are right and those that don't agree are not being honest with themselves based on this statement. Maybe a poor choice of words....

If it is, sadly, I think I am done with it.

This is/was inevitable. You do not support the current UO. The classic shard is not happening any time soon. Your only recourse is to regurgitate the same message over and over in hopes of feedback by those who would make the decision outlining your salvation. The classic shard is worlds away but noone is going to admit that because there is the chance the buzz about it migh just cause someone to start up an account in the meantime to see what UO is about now. Saying no would just stop all the chatter and would be a bad decision by EA Mythic. It's just a matter of time as to your willingness to participation in a concept/idea that is not going to take place in the foreseable future. It always was...

 

[Llewen]

No offense here, but it is obvious that most Trammel players do not want to take any risk of losing anything...ever. That's why the game's economy is so horribly broken. People start discussions about gold sinks. The best gold sink in the game should be that players could involuntarily lose things. Not only would it provide an excellent gold sink, but it would also add more challenge to the game.

Your logic here is fundamentally flawed. A full loot environment cannot be equated with any form of gold sink. Permanent durability loss with the end result of items breaking, that is a gold or item sink. Or if you like, insurance where the victor either gets no gold for the victory, or only a percentage, that is a gold sink.

All full loot does is redistribute the wealth, it doesn't vanish from the game, and for the most part it redistributes it in a very uneven way. The majority of the wealth will end up in the banks of a very few highly successful players, and unfortunately in the condition that UO is in right now, those "highly successful players" will likely be players who are willing to cheat to gain the advantage.

The Devs need to make some changes to UO because that kind of system is not going to be able to retain player interest forever. You may not see it now, none of you may see it right now, but slowly...people are seeing it. I have finally seen it, and I know others who have as well. The result...the game is losing players.

This is a ridiculous statement. How many years has it been since AoS was released? How many years has it been since since insurance was introduced? UO is still here isn't it, or am I hallucinating?

Subscription numbers ebb and flow. They tend to rise immediately after a new expansion such as SA, and then they tend to ebb after the new expansion buzz has worn off.

There will always be people joining and leaving MMO's, it's just the nature of online gaming. Some day UO will die, but I don't think that is going to be any time soon. In fact I think the next year or two are going to be very good for the game.

If you want to leave, that's your prerogative, no one is stopping you. But don't assume just because you are playing the malcontent that everyone else is in the same black pit you are...

 

[Lord Chaos]

No offense here, but it is obvious that most Trammel players do not want to take any risk of losing anything

What are you on about? We risk losing just as much as Feluccan players. And heck a death can be a major set back, plus its usually a hit to durability, which not everyone has umptidumt millions to buy POF for.

People start discussions about gold sinks. The best gold sink in the game should be that players could involuntarily lose things. Not only would it provide an excellent gold sink, but it would also add more challenge to the game.

That would be a horrid gold sink. Also it would simply mean that the things would be MOVED from the PvM'ers to the PvP'ers, they wouldn't really be lost.

There's plenty of challenge and fun to be had in the game, not everyone wants your 2D Counterstrike world.

This isn't about PvP or PvM, it's about risk. It's about losing things because sometimes those risks don't work out. We, as in all current UO players, have gotten soft. We have Trammel, item insurance, etc. There is no more challenge in this game. Even PvP has gotten stale and rote and becomes an equation based on items and who has the best scripts and cheat programs.

So your rant is not about the Abyss, its just another veiled attempt at going on about Classic Servers, LOL.

And honestly, if Classic Servers even did come about and it got popular, how exactly long do you think it would take for someone to develop a speed hack or script for it?

The Devs need to make some changes to UO because that kind of system is not going to be able to retain player interest forever. You may not see it now, none of you may see it right now, but slowly...people are seeing it. I have finally seen it, and I know others who have as well. The result...the game is losing players.

The game is losing players because there's very little influx of new players and existing players turn to other MMOs for various reasons...EVE, Aion, WoW, Lineage 2 and even Multi and Single-player games.

The problem is that most people just don't want to pay for butt ugly ancient expensive game to run on their brand new super duper gaming rig.

Do you feel that UO provides an adequate challenge vs. the rewards you get in the game?

Yes.

Before you answer, consider the following:

- Since SA was released, how many times have you died in game?

Countless times.

- When you did die, what did you really lose?

Enchanted bandages, apples, petals, bolts/arrows (sometimes), accumulated items, insurance money, durability, my time (and sometimes lots of it), etc. etc.

- How much gold would you say you have in your banks on all of your characters?

In grand total between 3 people? Probably some 30+ million.

- Would you say that your overall 'net-worth' in game has gone up, or down since SA launched?

Up

- What exactly pushes you to want to PvM in the new areas? Is it the items you can collect? Exploration? Just something new?

- its fun
- exploration
- experience
- collect ingredients and items
- play together
etc.

I am not here to judge anyone on their answers, but I think that anyone that is being perfectly honest with themselves will admit that all risk was removed from this game when insurance was introduced.

Or perhaps you just have a preconceived notion already stuck in your head.

Even in the early Trammel days, one could still lose their stuff...it was rare, but it could happen. Since those days have gone away, look at the sheer amount of things you have as a player now. Is that really what this game is about...hording?

And building houses, exploring, training skills, building characters, taking on new challenges, having fun, etc. etc.

If it is, sadly, I think I am done with it.

I think you need to reevaluate what you want with the game...its entirely possible to recreate the old experience, just don't insure your stuff and get together with other players and agree to all only use basic stuff, then PvP 'till the cows come home.

 

[HD2300]

No offense here, but it is obvious that most Trammel players do not want to take any risk of losing anything...ever. That's why the game's economy is so horribly broken. People start discussions about gold sinks. The best gold sink in the game should be that players could involuntarily lose things. Not only would it provide an excellent gold sink, but it would also add more challenge to the game.

Your logic here is fundamentally flawed. A full loot environment cannot be equated with any form of gold sink. Permanent durability loss with the end result of items breaking, that is a gold or item sink. Or if you like, insurance where the victor either gets no gold for the victory, or only a percentage, that is a gold sink.

All full loot does is redistribute the wealth, it doesn't vanish from the game, and for the most part it redistributes it in a very uneven way.

this.

 

[HD2300]

I think you need to reevaluate what you want with the game...its entirely possible to recreate the old experience, just don't insure your stuff and get together with other players and agree to all only use basic stuff, then PvP 'till the cows come home.

Or practise what you preach and play Siege.

 

[Lord Chaos]

I think you need to reevaluate what you want with the game...its entirely possible to recreate the old experience, just don't insure your stuff and get together with other players and agree to all only use basic stuff, then PvP 'till the cows come home.

Or practise what you preach and play Siege.

But then she'll get pwned and stuff.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Or practise what you preach and play Siege.

When have ever preached playing Siege?

If I wanted to have 1 character slot, AoS and a light population, I could just delete most of my characters and stay on Atlantic.

By the way, did you learn the difference between C# scripts and C++ yet? I noticed you bailed on that particular subject. rolleyes:

 

[Derium of ls]

It's funny...I got exactly the responses I expected to get, from exactly the people I expected to get them from.

Go figure.

Shall I being to hate you? :gun:

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Shall I being to hate you? :gun:

Of course not, I knew you would love the idea!

 

[Tanivar]

No offense here, but it is obvious that most Trammel players do not want to take any risk of losing anything...ever.

Will you give up on this line of bull Morgana?! We are getting tired of hearing it. We take risks everytime we play. Every dirtnap where we can't get back to the body costs us something. True, the deaths are less often than they would be in fel, but they still occur.

That's why the game's economy is so horribly broken. People start discussions about gold sinks. The best gold sink in the game should be that players could involuntarily lose things.

And that would be to lose them involuntarily and have them disappear from the game, completely, not just get transferred to a PvPer or PKers possesion. That is not a gold sink.

Until UO ignores the whining of the Uber-gear Players and drops Insurance there won't be any kind of real gold sink in UO. Any Uber item can be pretty much replaced by Imbueing these days but the Uber-gear Players complain and cry and threaten to close their accounts if even *one* of their items is taken from them.

You want to keep harping about people being afraid to lose things, at least aim it at the right group of people.

There is no combat gear I have that I can't exactly replace or come close to replacing, using my Crafters, should I lose it. If Insurance was gone next time I logged in, I'd make an annoyed comment under my breath and play the game anyway. If I lose a set of armor and mage-weapons from a character and want to keep playing it, I'll just transfer a set from another character and Craft a new set later.

And consider this oh Great Slammer of Trammel. Most of the people in fel are probably part of that Uber-gear crowd who are so afraid of losing their combat toys.

 

[Derium of ls]

It doesn't make it more challenging. Getting ganked does not add any challenge to the game. All it adds is more time.

If you get ganked by higher level people, or multiple people and really have no way of winning, how is that challenging?

Or are you arguing that time = challenge? The quests in WoW are the same difficulty on every server. They don't become more challenging because some idiot level 80 wants to gank your level 20...

I think you're trying to nitpick this too much. just because the quest is the same doesn't mean accomplishing it is equally as challenging.

In hockey there are powerplays when too many of the other team is in the penalty box, because it's now easier to score a goal. If I put you on the ice Vs no one, it's less of a challenge for you to get a goal, now if I put 72 people on the ice against you, the challenge is probably too great for you to make a goal. The object of the same remains the same, but one way is much more of a challenge than the other. Can you still score a goal against 72 people? sure, it's now just harder to do.

So for my WoW point, if my quest is to gather 20 herbs, I think the more people that are there trying to stop me adds to the challenge of it.

"If you get ganked by higher level people, or multiple people and really have no way of winning, how is that challenging?"

the point is not to win in PvP, the point is to accomplish your quest. But it becomes harder, aka more challenging with more variables working against you.


"Or are you arguing that time = challenge? "

no, will it take more time to complete? maybe, but that depends on a lot of factors. If I drive to the store in 10minutes on a dry summers day, then make that same drive at a higher speed at midnight during a snowstorm and make it there in 7min does NOT mean the snowstorm driving was easier because it took less time. It was actually much harder because of the variables involved that could have possibly prevented me from accomplishing my goal. It's not always the case more time = harder to do.

 

[Derium of ls]

Most of the people in fel are probably part of that Uber-gear crowd who are so afraid of losing their combat toys.

That's one of my major complaints. People flocked to tram for ONE reason only, for better protection against losing their items. Now it's gone so far that die hard reds in fel ARE trammies. They have their uber gear all insured so when they die they get it all back.

I would like to point out that the people lately who have been losing items due to the insurance bugs, I do feel bad for them. Even though I want insurance to go away, the fact they were promised security by a game mechanic, but the game failed to be fair and protect them... That's a different story.

 

[Derium of ls]

Or practise what you preach and play Siege.

why does EVERYONE bring up Siege? just because it's CLOSER to what we want, doesn't mean it's anywhere near it.

Yes Siege has aspects where it's harder. but is it still an item based piece of crap like all the other shards? Yup.

Sorry, I want the old days back ect ect, but Siege does not and never will supply anything close enough to that.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Will you give up on this line of bull Morgana?! We are getting tired of hearing it. We take risks everytime we play. Every dirtnap where we can't get back to the body costs us something.

Like what? Bandages? Maybe reagents?

As a proportion of your current wealth, would you even guess it would be 1/10th of 1 percent? I would bet it's not. That's not a risk, that is an inconvenience.

And that would be to lose them involuntarily and have them disappear from the game, completely, not just get transferred to a PvPer or PKers possesion. That is not a gold sink.

Take PvP out of the equation for a moment. What I am talking about is when you die (as rare as that is now) in a Trammel ruleset area. Nothing of any real value stays on your corpse. So there is rarely any need to ever replace anything except for wear, and that is easily worked around as well in most cases.

Pre-AoS, death in Trammel in an area full of spawn still had some risk to it.

Everyone needs to get this through their heads...with insurance, there is no real risk at all. This is not about PvP vs. PvM...it is about what the actual cost is where death occurs in the game...regardless of method of death.

Until UO ignores the whining of the Uber-gear Players and drops Insurance there won't be any kind of real gold sink in UO. Any Uber item can be pretty much replaced by Imbueing these days but the Uber-gear Players complain and cry and threaten to close their accounts if even *one* of their items is taken from them.

You want to keep harping about people being afraid to lose things, at least aim it at the right group of people.

I am not aiming at any one particular group. No one in UO today has any true risk besides Siege players.

And consider this oh Great Slammer of Trammel. Most of the people in fel are probably part of that Uber-gear crowd who are so afraid of losing their combat toys.

That is correct...and insurance protects them from risk just as it does Trammies.

My original point is that if a new area of the game is going to be opened up that offers greater rewards, the way the Abyss was, that area should involve greater risk than existing areas.

I still don't understand why some people are completely okay to dying to an NPC...even if it means they lose their stuff...but if a player kills them, and they lose the same stuff, it is some kind of personal offense?

The larger picture here is that there is too little risk in the game...both from NPCs and PCs.

It comes as little surprise to me that many disagree...why would anyone want to accept a greater challenge when they can just get, and keep, everything they want the easy way??

I guess the UO population, as a whole, has no interest in risk, challenge, or improving the game to make it hold players interest any longer...just 'gimmie, gimmie, gimmie'. And that's sad.

 

[Tina Small]

I guess the UO population, as a whole, has no interest in risk, challenge, or improving the game to make it hold players interest any longer...just 'gimmie, gimmie, gimmie'. And that's sad.

Two interesting "risk psychology" articles/papers you might want to read, Morgana:

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15516/1/MPRA_paper_15516.pdf

http://www.gametheory.net/mike/applets/risk/

I think enough studies have been done already to suggest that we aren't equally risk-seeking or risk-averse, Morgana. Where you see situations that you think aren't risky enough for the rewards they provide, someone else may examine the same situation and think the risks outweigh the rewards.

But you already know this! Perhaps it just suits your nature better to ignore the research, though, and pretend that we all think like you and have all had the same experiences in UO and elsewhere in life and therefore should all agree with your vision of UO.

I hope that for your sake, someone like Cal will actually make a post one of these days that helps you decide how to proceed with regard to UO.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I hope that for your sake, someone like Cal will actually make a post one of these days that helps you decide how to proceed with regard to UO.

Interesting how so many people equate me pondering what could be changed in the current game to me wanting a Classic Shard. (now that I have mentioned it here...outside that thread...I will also now be accused of "Spamming every single thread in UHALL with it rolleyes: )

What I am talking about has NOTHING to do with Classic UO, Classic Shards, or anything of the kind.

I thought that there might be perhaps, just perhaps, a couple of people that might step up and say 'Hey, I would take some extra risks...it would make the game more challenging, and therefore more interesting'. I guess not.

I just don't understand what fun playing Chess against the family dog might be, so I guess I don't get this whole 'I want everything, I want it now, and I don't want to risk anything to get it' mentality so many seem to have.

(that is not directed at YOU per se Tina)

 

[phantus]

What I am talking about has NOTHING to do with Classic UO, Classic Shards, or anything of the kind.

If not for this...

- The Abyss would be full open PvP with no consequences (I mean, you are already condemned to hell right?) And full looting, no insurance.

...one might believe it...rolleyes:


This is, after all, what you expected right?

 

[Tanivar]

...so I guess I don't get this whole 'I want everything, I want it now, and I don't want to risk anything to get it' mentality so many seem to have.

Seem to have, per you at least.

Maybe you truely don't have the ability to see things as the other side does.

You've just gotten tiresome enough to make my Ingore list.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

You've just gotten tiresome enough to make my Ingore list.

Well, it's always easier to pretend that there is no differing view than to debate it I suppose...but to each their own.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Well, it's always easier to pretend that there is no differing view than to debate it I suppose...

And the massive irony award goes to!....*drumroll* Morgana LeFay!!!

 

[Evlar]

Evlar, we all play UO for different reasons. What you find enjoyable and challenging in UO may be too stimulating or stressful for someone else to enjoy.

If someone who plays UO has a tough family or work situation, it may very well be that the last thing they want to do is log on to UO and set themselves up for the possibility of having to take abuse from a nameless, faceless bully using the Internet as their avenue to find more "victims." If they have little or no PvP experience, are disabled or have medical conditions, are just getting older and have slower reaction times, and/or don't have top-of-the-line gaming gear, they may also feel ill-equipped for PvP.

You will probably never know exactly why many people in UO don't engage in PvP. And if you assume most of the time that people don't do it because they are "cowards" or are afraid to "die" at another person's hands, I believe you're making a mistake.

Tina, I understand the points you make.

Perhaps I just don't understand "stress", having never suffered from it. That's not to say that my life has been a perfect sphere of bliss, far from it. I just don't get stressed about things so much. I get annoyed, I get frustrated, yes, but I prefer to pick myself up and get on with things. I guess I'm thick skinned.

As for what happens in a game environment, really, I just don't take things so personally. Perhaps that's entirely the crux of the problem, not just with UO, but the internet in general. People seem to read too much into what someone behind a screen, on the other side of the world, who they will likely never meet or talk to in the flesh, far too personally.

Is that my fault? Is it their fault? Fault of the internet? Who knows...

Suffice it to say then, that there's a whole other psychological debate out there, when you raise the points you have.

Someone said on these forums recently, that UO has become little more than an internet chat room with pixels. My first thoughts having played the game for a long time, was to be mildly offended. Then I took a step back, thought about it, then agreed. When I say the game has become a very sanitised version of its former self, that's what I think of.

Now, when we look at the forums here, people complain about various things. Most of them are regarding cheating, grief, spawn stealing, camping, verbal discourse, misunderstandings with other players of the game, etc... Most of the complaints seem to be resultant from interaction with other players to a greater extent. Someone doesn't like what someone else is doing, so they are unhappy, stressed, call it what you will.

This may sound cold and harsh, but if someone is of a predisposition to be offended so easily in an environment which encourages interaction and participation with other people online, in what's suggested to be a competitive "game" environment, why do they "risk" such offence or stress by participating in the first place?

Let's take the word "game"

Here's are dictionary definitions of the word "game"

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/game

There are many conflicting definitions of that word alone, if we were to put them into the context of the MMORPG "game" of Ultima Online. You and I could pick whichever definition suits our own view of things.

The origins of the word though, refer to athleticism and competition between participants. If we take your points versus that context, then is UO no longer a game, but simply an online community, where challenge or competition is to become frowned upon?

The whole thing just baffles me. My take on participation in an RPG game such as UO, is to compete, to adventure, to face adversity in a fantasy environment. When I marry that to a film like Lord of the Rings, the more sanitised UO gets, I equate it to cutting out the battle scenes, parts with fighting in, or any form of combat. That would probably leave you with about an hour's worth of trilogy which comprises of dialogue scenes with just Hobbits and Elves. That's not just what Lord of the Rings is about.

I look at what's happened to this game over the years. Now, it most certainly isn't Ultima Online.

 

[Tina Small]

Interesting how so many people equate me pondering what could be changed in the current game to me wanting a Classic Shard. (now that I have mentioned it here...outside that thread...I will also now be accused of "Spamming every single thread in UHALL with it rolleyes: )

What I am talking about has NOTHING to do with Classic UO, Classic Shards, or anything of the kind.

I thought that there might be perhaps, just perhaps, a couple of people that might step up and say 'Hey, I would take some extra risks...it would make the game more challenging, and therefore more interesting'. I guess not.

I just don't understand what fun playing Chess against the family dog might be, so I guess I don't get this whole 'I want everything, I want it now, and I don't want to risk anything to get it' mentality so many seem to have.

That isn't quite the way you framed things in your first post, Morgana. As Phantus pointed out, you included the words, "full looting, no insurance."

The experiences I've had in UO since I began playing five and a half years ago (some in Fel, some in Trammel) lead me to believe that I would not enjoy playing UO in such an environment.

I encounter a sufficient number of jackasses in my life while not playing UO to know that I would never pay for the opportunity to voluntarily run into substantially more of them than I already have while playing a game.

If I wanted to play a game where I needed much better gaming equipment than I already own and where my gaming activities are almost completely determined on a daily basis by the number of my friends who are going to be logged on at the exact same time that I am, I'd be playing a different game. As it is, I'm playing on a four and a half year old laptop using a plain old wired mouse. Nothing fancy and nothing I envision having the funds to upgrade for a while either. And the small trusted group of friends that I've played with the last couple of years are, for the most part, bigger night owls than I am and many nights I'm lucky if I get to do more than exchange a quick "good night, logging off now hope to catch you tomorrow" ICQ with even one of them.

Nope, I don't see how an environment such as you describe would have any appeal for me at this point in time.

 

[Stewpid]

People know that I am no fan of a split world (Tram/Fel), but since we have it, I think the devs should have done the following when they opened the Abyss:

- Reds would have been offered a reprieve. They could go freely to and from any facet.

- The ones that continued to murder after the reprieve would have been condemned to the Abyss.

- Fel would no longer be a PvP area.

- The Abyss would be full open PvP with no consequences (I mean, you are already condemned to hell right?) And full looting, no insurance.

- Only reds would be able to place housing in the Abyss, and that would be limited to pre-made styles that could not serve as turret houses. These houses would look like prison cells.

This way, those that wanted to go and get their new uberness in the SA areas would have to suck it up and deal with a little risk.

What is the point of having the Abyss if it is just another goodie-two shoes area? rolleyes:

Go ahead...flame away.

Why do you even pay to play this game if you hate it so much? Just quit already and move on. I get the impression you know how to program, or at least you understand the basics, so make your own dream shard, with all your ridiculous rules, and the 15-20 of your fans can all play there and leave our game alone?