What UO has that other games don't...

[Lord Chaos]

...the need to read an encyclopedia of guides to move 5 feet in the game.

I went back to another MMO I hadn't played in years just to play around a little and it was fairly easy and intuitive to get back into things.

In UO everything changes, so very little old knowledge is current or even usable, have to read up on tons of changes, new areas, ways to get there, new systems, new menus, new blah blah.

Its really detrimental to the game in the long run and is very much another contributing factor why most people either quit or don't want to play at all.

Perhaps some sort of ingame system where you kinda in a "Windows Help" fashion could simply write "I want to..." and it gives information on it in an up to date manner or other some such.

 

[omgmir]

At some point you're going to have to just accept that you're playing a 13 year old game. Appreciate the fact it's still around and actually has active developers instead of being dead and gone or firmly in maintenance-only mode.

UO is not going to magically transform into a modern day MMO. It's not going to double it's userbase overnight in fact the only 'new' players are ones who played it many years ago and are giving it another shot based on nostalgia alone.

Hell in the little over a week i've been back i've been shocked to hell to discover how much in contact Mythic is with the community and the work they are putting into the game. Appreciate that instead of trying to make them fix the unfixable.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Old game or not, its certainly something the dev team can work towards diminishing. It was one of the things that made UO of old great, you could do so much, yet it wasn't so complex you needed a million guides.

There are new players joining that hasn't played before, they get rapidly scared off though.

 

[omgmir]

You don't know what you're talking about. UO is leaps and bounds more user friendly nowadays than it was when it came out, so don't try to play the "old UO was good because x" card.

Is it more newbie friendly than a current generation MMO? No, and it's never going to be for a multitude of reasons not the smallest of which is it was designed more than a decade ago. That's the comparison you tried to make.

 

[Flutter]

And... ME!

 

[Lord Chaos]

You don't know what you're talking about. UO is leaps and bounds more user friendly nowadays than it was when it came out, so don't try to play the "old UO was good because x" card.

This is completely untrue, it might not have been so user friendly per se, but it was a lot less complex and you needed a lot less information to just go out there and do stuff.

Is it more newbie friendly than a current generation MMO? No, and it's never going to be for a multitude of reasons not the smallest of which is it was designed more than a decade ago. That's the comparison you tried to make.

Its not friendly period.

 

[MalagAste]

I love UO for many things... one of which is the customization....


I love being able to own my own plot of UO land and design it any way I like...

I love the way I can custom my character to look how I'd like...

I especially love the fact that UO is a Sandbox... and I don't have to walk the line...

 

[Chardonnay]

...the need to read an encyclopedia of guides to move 5 feet in the game.

I went back to another MMO I hadn't played in years just to play around a little and it was fairly easy and intuitive to get back into things.

In UO everything changes, so very little old knowledge is current or even usable, have to read up on tons of changes, new areas, ways to get there, new systems, new menus, new blah blah.

Its really detrimental to the game in the long run and is very much another contributing factor why most people either quit or don't want to play at all.

Perhaps some sort of ingame system where you kinda in a "Windows Help" fashion could simply write "I want to..." and it gives information on it in an up to date manner or other some such.

DEVS who listen?

Oops, i read that wrong...

On a side note how about those easter baskets!

 

[Lord Chaos]

I love UO for many things... one of which is the customization....


I love being able to own my own plot of UO land and design it any way I like...

I love the way I can custom my character to look how I'd like...

I especially love the fact that UO is a Sandbox... and I don't have to walk the line...

1. Is a good thing, heck the houses are the primary reason I keep my accounts, to bad grandfathered houses can't be customized.

2. You mean equally ugly? hehehe

3. Its more like a sandbox full of ADHD and Asperger syndrome kids.

 

[omgmir]

This is completely untrue, it might not have been so user friendly per se, but it was a lot less complex and you needed a lot less information to just go out there and do stuff.

No one's stopping you from going out there and 'doing stuff'.

I can create a new character right now and head out to the brit graveyard and kill skeletons for hours if I want, I don't need a manual to figure that out. Hell the only difference is now between me and the graveyard is a tutorial explaining things like movement, inventory, and war mode. That sure enough wasn't around back in 97.

The game didn't suddenly become more complex, it evolved and players did as well. You're not content with just going and mining for 4 hours now, or killing ettins all night. You want peerless, you want factions, you want to do champ spawns. 1000 gold isn't a lot to you anymore you want millions, you want a castle, you want validation neons.

 

[RawHeadRex]

In UO everything changes, so very little old knowledge is current or even usable, have to read up on tons of changes, new areas, ways to get there, new systems, new menus, new blah blah.

awesome huh ?

 

[a slave girl]

I vote turn some of the empty areas of New Haven into a historical UO museum that also serves as a guide to new players.

The Famous Characters from UO's History area of the museum might contain interactive statues of notable characters that wear appropriate gear for their template, which is explained by a plaque underneath or a book on a side table or by highlighting one piece of the statues armor.

The statues might say something they're famous for and have a plaque behind them explaining who they are.

That would give some UO lore to a new player (as well as some of us older players) as well as explain the difference between mage armor and warrior armor and also the different templates available.

The monsters area of the museum could contain lifelike models of dragons and nightmares and other creatures of the land and by mousing over a new player might get a description of skill level needed to tame or defeat the creature, along with resources and items the creature gives when killed.

Maps of the land might be found in a central area of the museum or maybe even on the wall behind the statue they pertain to, for example, behind the dragon a map showing New Haven's relationship to Destard's location.

A Felucca section would be needed to explain red gates and pvp and powerscrolls and factions.

An items section would display most used items and maybe some rarer items, such as a skinning knife (basic) versus a Clainin's spellbook (rarer), and explain how to obtain them.

An armory and or weaponry section in the museum would display basic to advanced gear so a new player would have an idea of where to go and what to do to obtain specific items.

I've been playing for 7 years and I'd love to have a place like that to go learn about things I don't know yet, like which dungeons are where and have what inside as well as learning more about UO's famous characters.

 

[BeefSupreme]

The harder to understand, what to do etc is a feature I LIKE.

It helps keep the stupid away.

 

[Lord Chaos]

The harder to understand, what to do etc is a feature I LIKE.

It helps keep the stupid away.

So you're another me...me...me player?

 

[Beer_Cayse]

You are playing a 1-of-a-kind game in the genre ... a sandbox. In that anything and perhaps EVERYTHING can change over time.

Get used to it - altho it is a tad hard sometimes. I still miss the old AR only armor rating, Might, Vanq, etc ratings on weapons.

 

[ProZac]

I find it insane the amount of disagreement people have from the OP.

Question for those who think his statements hold no ground..

Would you tell a friend to download/try UO, not hold their hand through the beginning (working up skills, figuring out a template, gearing up) and expect them to play for more than a few hours before going back to a more user friendly MMO?

If you think they would stick around, you are lying to yourself.

This game is complicated beyond belief, sites like Stratics are littered with out-dated information, 90% of towns have zero players in them. If new players didn't know to go to Luna or Brit there's a good chance on most shards they'd never come across another real player to even seek advice.

You think everyone searches the net for hours upon hours to find basic information for a game?

Stop kidding yourselves, UO is EXTREMELY unfriendly to new and long-time gone players. They shouldn't start in New Haven. Maybe we can get a newbie playground in Luna and people who enjoy helping new players can hang out there and do that. That, or we could finally get a newbie tutorial system that isn't painful to go through.

I personally would very likely never come back from my "breaks" if I didn't have a ton of old friends still playing to show me the ropes again. Typically asking people for advice will result in a sarcastic unhelpful response or being ignored.

In summary, I agree with the OP.

 

[Tanivar]

UO is not level-based. You can become friends with players who play many less, or many more hours than you do, and still hunt together and both benefit.

A game system that doesn't lock you into a certain series of quests to advance in the game.

UO has such a wide variety of things you can do that you can find something entertaining to do no matter how your day has gone or what mood your in. From seriously laid-back herding sheep <yawn... > to homicidal PvP.

A very good Crafting system. It's only real fault is that to much of the Craftables require you to have ingredients that take killing 10,000 hp ubeer monsters that dish out 1000 hp of gamage per second or have millions in gold to buy the ingredients from vendors.

An economy in desperate need of fixing.

A magic regeant system thats such a PitA that LRC had to be introduced.

 

[omgmir]

I find it insane the amount of disagreement people have from the OP.

Question for those who think his statements hold no ground..

Would you tell a friend to download/try UO, not hold their hand through the beginning (working up skills, figuring out a template, gearing up) and expect them to play for more than a few hours before going back to a more user friendly MMO?

If you think they would stick around, you are lying to yourself.

This game is complicated beyond belief, sites like Stratics are littered with out-dated information, 90% of towns have zero players in them. If new players didn't know to go to Luna or Brit there's a good chance on most shards they'd never come across another real player to even seek advice.

You think everyone searches the net for hours upon hours to find basic information for a game?

Stop kidding yourselves, UO is EXTREMELY unfriendly to new and long-time gone players. They shouldn't start in New Haven. Maybe we can get a newbie playground in Luna and people who enjoy helping new players can hang out there and do that. That, or we could finally get a newbie tutorial system that isn't painful to go through.

I personally would very likely never come back from my "breaks" if I didn't have a ton of old friends still playing to show me the ropes again. Typically asking people for advice will result in a sarcastic unhelpful response or being ignored.

In summary, I agree with the OP.

I wouldn't tell a friend to play UO at all because there are better games out there and no one who has never played with it is going to stick with it.

The majority of the people who play this game do so for nostalgia reasons, whether they allow themselves to believe that or not. Even you, your registration date is 2003 an i'd wager you played the game long before that.

Of course the game is not newbie friendly, no one ever said it was. What he SAID and what I disagreed with was it's less newbie friendly now than it was when it came out, which is a load of garbage. It just seemed that way then cause it was a brand new genre and everything was fresh and new and simple. No one had goals of being 'elite' or having 'skills' because those concepts didn't even exist yet. The Enhanced Client alone makes the game a thousand times more newbie friendly than it was in the old days.

I also disagreed with the purpose of this thread, cause I don't believe it has one. Ok we get it UO is not WoW, you accomplish nothing bringing this up because UO doesn't have a team of 400 people and a 17 million dollar a month budget to rework the entire game or to add some kind of massive in-game encyclopedia.

Want an answer to every newbie question? Here: http://uoguide.com/ There you go. Have a gump pop up every time you login the game with that URL in it and big bold letters that say "THE ANSWER TO ALL YOUR QUESTIONS LIES HERE".

 

[BeefSupreme]

So you're another me...me...me player?

No, I rather enjoy playing with others. I just want those others to be people who can think for themselves, figure things out for themselves and generally be a bit higher on the intelligence ladder than normal. Anything is better than 100,000 WoW idiots running around the server.

 

[Lord Chaos]

You can be a me...me...me player and play with others too.

 

[Aran]

...the need to read an encyclopedia of guides to move 5 feet in the game.

I went back to another MMO I hadn't played in years just to play around a little and it was fairly easy and intuitive to get back into things.

In UO everything changes, so very little old knowledge is current or even usable, have to read up on tons of changes, new areas, ways to get there, new systems, new menus, new blah blah.

Its really detrimental to the game in the long run and is very much another contributing factor why most people either quit or don't want to play at all.

Perhaps some sort of ingame system where you kinda in a "Windows Help" fashion could simply write "I want to..." and it gives information on it in an up to date manner or other some such.

Jesus ****ing Christ LC would you put on a new record already? This one is so worn it's not even a clear song looping, just noise.

 

[Beer_Cayse]

Okay - let's try it your way ... I will address the points the OP made in a manner to which it appears I should have done.

I went back to another MMO I hadn't played in years just to play around a little and it was fairly easy and intuitive to get back into things.

Simpler games ARE easier to get around in. It was quite easy for me to go from UO to DAoC, but I came back. Can't talk to WOW but WarHammer leaves me a bit cold.

In UO everything changes, so very little old knowledge is current or even usable, have to read up on tons of changes, new areas, ways to get there, new systems, new menus, new blah blah.

Yup ... again, that's the sand of the sandbox doing that. It shifts and moves like a thing alive. Some of the change is good, some not ... much driven by players gripes here and via feedback I suppose.

Its really detrimental to the game in the long run and is very much another contributing factor why most people either quit or don't want to play at all.

People who ask me what UO is like are told by me - it's hard to get accustomed to all the various things that drive the game. Reputation titles, skills, simple things like arming yourself for battle. It's NOT a novice game at all.

UO is a prestige game ... of all the games on the market, UO is the oldest, hardest and has the most knowledgeable playerbase. Of course things will not be handed to you on a platter. YOU need to learn it, live it.

Perhaps some sort of ingame system where you kinda in a "Windows Help" fashion could simply write "I want to..." and it gives information on it in an up to date manner or other some such.

As mentioned ... uoguide, then here and any of several other very good sites for the information. EA can't keep up all the Herald pages and the patcher page ... you want them to maintain a hand-holding "how do I ..."?

Sorry, LC. Many times, even tho not written, I have agreed with you but not on this one.

 

[Mairut]

Question for those who think his statements hold no ground..

Would you tell a friend to download/try UO, not hold their hand through the beginning (working up skills, figuring out a template, gearing up) and expect them to play for more than a few hours before going back to a more user friendly MMO?

If you think they would stick around, you are lying to yourself

Actually, I did that with my roomate. I explained some simple things like how to move, that if you click on scissors and click on a bolt of cloth you get cut cloth and then do it again and you get bandies. That it's item based in that sense... you have to use items to do things in UO. Some LRC armor. Gave them a link for these forums. Then... Yep, thats how it works! Good luck!

Played a couple of hours the first night, played again on a day off, did it again a few days later. They play almost every night now.

I think my dad did the same thing with me when I first started playing, but I have to add I had the benefit of sitting next to him watching him play before I started. I think I was 11.

I also know a kid who plays who's around 11 yrs old now and is pretty decent at pvp.

I have to disagree with your statement of fact (the part I snipped). There is no hand-holding involved.

Try again?

As far as what the OP said.... having something to help new players who found out about UO from a website or something and not from a friend who could be there to help... we could probably use something like that.

 

[RawHeadRex]

I find it insane the amount of disagreement people have from the OP.

Question for those who think his statements hold no ground..

Would you tell a friend to download/try UO, not hold their hand through the beginning (working up skills, figuring out a template, gearing up) and expect them to play for more than a few hours before going back to a more user friendly MMO?

If you think they would stick around, you are lying to yourself.

This game is complicated beyond belief, sites like Stratics are littered with out-dated information, 90% of towns have zero players in them. If new players didn't know to go to Luna or Brit there's a good chance on most shards they'd never come across another real player to even seek advice.

You think everyone searches the net for hours upon hours to find basic information for a game?

Stop kidding yourselves, UO is EXTREMELY unfriendly to new and long-time gone players. They shouldn't start in New Haven. Maybe we can get a newbie playground in Luna and people who enjoy helping new players can hang out there and do that. That, or we could finally get a newbie tutorial system that isn't painful to go through.

I personally would very likely never come back from my "breaks" if I didn't have a ton of old friends still playing to show me the ropes again. Typically asking people for advice will result in a sarcastic unhelpful response or being ignored.

In summary, I agree with the OP.

this is exactly ... what makes this game what it is. remember what pulled YOU in ? man-alive working resist up to gm in 99 was an ENORMOUS deal. sure we got and gave help to others to make it easier along the way too, but the process/journey is part of it. while it's true there are some that are unwilling or won't help new players, there are many many who do still.

 

[OxAO]

I love the way I can custom my character to look how I'd like...

actually you can not have a different look anymore.

Robes have properties and if you want a specific look you can not without losing good equipment.

What would be nice if they can change the clothing system a bit.
It shouldn't be hard. Something like a paper doll would actually be a box.
you put everything on the box paper doll but it doesn't show up on your toon.
only your real paper doll you can cloth anyway you want but doesn't give any property effects.