simple, really. when people play the same character for years & years they find ways 2 maximize that character's power. better equipment, refined templates, better techniques, etc. there are lots of ways.
this is inevitable. in D&D characters advance in level and, sooner or later, they can challenge powerful beings in the game. that happens here too! it's ok. it's natural. it's the way of things.
no one minds if i call the UO people OSI, do you? I miss calling them that.
anyway....OSI at this point in UO's history has the job of finding ways 2 have higher-level content for higher-level play without erasing all of the lower-end stuff (or without erasing ways for low-level characters 2 reach high level). is it easy? no, but that's the job.
don't be afraid to put stuff in that's temporary as long as you're going to replace it at some point with something else. temporary world bosses (kind of like what you did with krampus which is really cool), random brief invasions ("these super raiders came out of nowhere! we beat them back but where did they come from? they sure dropped some cool stuff!"), etc., are all fine. if we miss an item from temporary content, we can just wait for the next event & we'll have a chance at something else cool.
with all the caps & stuff we have, power creep isn't necessarily bad because at this point all they can really do is offer us more options. there's an upper limit as 2 how powerful a character can become.
SO, OSI....please stop being afraid of coming up with cool rewards and challenging high level content. for rewards, please take a look at what's already available and used and come up with something like that, then give it a cool name, and make it rare but not unobtainable. for content, let the story guide you, and let the players refine it through testing and comments.
deco rewards are great. but when that's all there is? gets old even for players who love deco.
this is inevitable. in D&D characters advance in level and, sooner or later, they can challenge powerful beings in the game. that happens here too! it's ok. it's natural. it's the way of things.
no one minds if i call the UO people OSI, do you? I miss calling them that.
anyway....OSI at this point in UO's history has the job of finding ways 2 have higher-level content for higher-level play without erasing all of the lower-end stuff (or without erasing ways for low-level characters 2 reach high level). is it easy? no, but that's the job.
don't be afraid to put stuff in that's temporary as long as you're going to replace it at some point with something else. temporary world bosses (kind of like what you did with krampus which is really cool), random brief invasions ("these super raiders came out of nowhere! we beat them back but where did they come from? they sure dropped some cool stuff!"), etc., are all fine. if we miss an item from temporary content, we can just wait for the next event & we'll have a chance at something else cool.
with all the caps & stuff we have, power creep isn't necessarily bad because at this point all they can really do is offer us more options. there's an upper limit as 2 how powerful a character can become.
SO, OSI....please stop being afraid of coming up with cool rewards and challenging high level content. for rewards, please take a look at what's already available and used and come up with something like that, then give it a cool name, and make it rare but not unobtainable. for content, let the story guide you, and let the players refine it through testing and comments.
deco rewards are great. but when that's all there is? gets old even for players who love deco.