You all slay me. A question for the creative.

[RavenWinterHawk]

You can decide if you fit into the you all.

Well I can agree there is frustration over cheats and exploits. If we can see itso can they. Yeah they are addressing it but come on.

But as for all the doom postings.

I find it funny that KR still gets a bum wrap. Their mistake? Putting it out to early? Maybe. Our benefit. I know lots of what I suggested and other suggested have been put into KR. Legacy art anyone. EA's big blunder is their inability to market what they do.

How about EA states.

We are designing a new client called KR. We are going to develop it online over the next year. We will use your input and create the client before your eyes. So bear with us for the first year. It will become what you design.


Instead the took the old road. Tried to sooth everyone with 2D not going away and yada yada.

Next Sygian Abyss. Well damned if the do and damned if they dont. Marketing again. Well its time to put out KR shots of SA. Its time to start building your KR foundation. Circulate KR only CDs etc etc. Start dropping Stygian Abyss items on loot in game. Get some curiosity going. Lets us explore find clues. BUILD BUILD BUILD interest.

Now the drag on events. Whats going on with this event? Slow. Yep. Turn ins nice. But they (DEVS) run the same dang double edge sword. Giving us all the information. What if they made the turn ins a bit of a mystery. What if we had to learn what they take. What if "strangers" came and went wanting different items.

EA actually ruins their events by telling us when they start, end and what we have to do before they even get going. Might as well just give us the new items and end it. Exploration anyone. Searching the realm anyone. Nope. What happens. We all start complaining with "we didnt know", "I was gone", they got nice stuff and I didnt", and so on. Come on DEVS create a virtual world of countless exploration.

Static spawning is a very bad thing.

Its time to rethink UO. The game is great. Now get out of the box that limits it and think beyond.

The improvement of the game falls into 2 categories.

1. Cheats and exploits. This is for a full time team.
2. Game play. How it looks, How it plays, and what the world becomes. This is for a full time team and the players. KR's developement should have been marketed this way.

And my question has to do with number 2.

Your characture comes to UO. Its a massive land. How would you create the world of exploration, battle, crafting, huniting, collecting, etc?

Static vs Random spawns.
Changing dungeons.
Ability to craft unique items.

Just for thought.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Wayyyy too much to go over to fix this game. If UO wants my thoughts, they can call me. The first call is free.

 

[Revenant2]

1. Cheats and exploits. This is for a full time team.

The whole cheats and exploits thing is complicated. There's many different reasons for it and types of it. I have no idea how in-touch the UO dev people are with the day-to-day nature of 'cheating' in UO. Having said that and if they aren't quite in-touch with it, I wish there were somewhere where players could actually talk about what's happening, what they see, why their friends do it, and maybe why they do it. Nobody can talk about it on Stratics, this place is a bit like Romper Room, complete with Miss. Sally.

There's also the fact that the people who would talk about it would not be willing to cease doing it as things stand now. For some of them, it's possible that without the 'cheats' the game is unplayable for them, or it becomes so awkward to play certain templates that those chars become uncompetitive. It wouldn't be a coming-clean, it would just be information to help the situation be better understood.

I think I can safely say that one of the biggest day-to-day issues I know of is that the game's setup allows movement and actions to be performed faster by one person than another. You get someone who pings 15 to a shard, and have him crank up C**** E*****, and it's hugely unfair to the rest of us. I've had to fight someone who did exactly this on what would have normally been a no-brains, crappy, overpowered template, and it was ridiculous. You were dead before you understood what had happened or could react meaningfully. Nobody could ever catch this guy, it was like he was playing a different game and he was some sort of speed-god, jaunting in and out of all fights like it was nothing. With people like him around it's no wonder PVPers go to other games sometimes, situations like that are too lame to feel good about, even when 10 people get lucky and maybe get the guy dead, for once.

I don't know what the UO people can do to fix the huge gamespeed imbalances that are possible, but it's among the more frustrating issues for PVP that the game has, and it's got a serious impact on those who perceive 'cheating' to be a big deal in their UO PVP experiences.

 

[Tina Small]

Raven, in addition to doing a horrid job of marketing UO, EA seems to also put little effort and attention into providing updated documentation for new and existing players.

 

[Revenant2]

Raven, in addition to doing a horrid job of marketing UO, EA seems to also put little effort and attention into providing updated documentation for new and existing players.

Speaking of marketing, if there were just boxes in a few software stores, I know they'd bring in lots of players!

But at the same time, I'd want to see those people stay, and they should find a way to make in-game scamming cease before bringing in lots of new players. It would represent a bit of a sabotaged, wasted effort to pass the profits of their marketing work over to the leeches who use UO as their personal scamming grounds (as the scammed newbie would be more likely to become disenchanted and leave, right there, when some sh*thead steals from him and he gets a horrible, canned GM response that may as well say "Tough luck, sucker!" despite how nicely they try to package it).

 

[Otis Firefly]

you hit the nail on the head as far as them killing the adventure part of this game..we are getting way to much info on certain events before they even happen...its nice to walk into an area and say WTF IS THAT??..rather then know before hand and know what to take and what you'll get for it...*log in..go kill, take what i wanted..log out*, thats basicly whats happening with these events now.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Raven, in addition to doing a horrid job of marketing UO, EA seems to also put little effort and attention into providing updated documentation for new and existing players.

I agree. If I wasnt around uo for so long or hanging out at stratics, I wouldnt know whats up.

When I started. It was simple.
Your new.
You work up a skill.
You get stronger.
You can do more.

I learned from other players.

Now its more complicated, less info, and dont forget the world is huge. Easy to get lost.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

you hit the nail on the head as far as them killing the adventure part of this game..we are getting way to much info on certain events before they even happen...its nice to walk into an area and say WTF IS THAT??..rather then know before hand and know what to take and what you'll get for it...*log in..go kill, take what i wanted..log out*, thats basicly whats happening with these events now.

I sware I agree with you agreeing with me.

You said it better.

There is no WTF is that?

Its more I know what to go find, where to go, what it will give me, when it will leave, and how much I can sell it for... before it even becomes live in game.

The beauty that meets this example is in the people that are afraid to spend their SPRING CLEAN UP TICKETS because a third phase will have better stuff. They are asking for "clarity". Oh Brother!

And EA is put in the positioning of dealing with this.

KEEP IT A MYSTERY. ITS A GAME. ITS A GAMBLE. But most of all let it be and adventure.

 

[Emil IsTemp]

The thing that humors me, out of alll these posts about customer service, EA, updates, KR, Doom, SA, ect ect ect... I cant recall any insight posted by any EA employee that gives a clear answer to these problems. Not how you run a company/country.

 

[Loqucious]

EA's biggest problem is that they often are NOT straight up with people. It reminds me of politics and politicians which makes me angry and makes me feel as though I'm being insulted.

I want the leadership of UO to simply be HONEST! They should say matter of fact that they don't have the devs to do all that we need, they don't have the devs to fix all the old stuff, they don't have the GM's to give truly good GM support, it was a mistake to release KR so soon and that they have to fix it before they can release SA, the bean counters are limiting their abilities, the customer service is a joke but they wish to improve it..............JUST BE FREAKIN HONEST AND QUIT INSULTING ME WITH THEIR DAMNED OBFUSCATION.

I'm reasonably sure that the devs like this game and want to see it improved and last for another 10 years at least. And I would be TOTALLY behind them if they simply told me the truth about the state of UO.

 

[Loqucious]

Speaking of marketing, if there were just boxes in a few software stores, I know they'd bring in lots of players!

They can't bring in new players en mass right now because the whole UO situation is too disfunctional. Bad GM service, bad customer service, bad billing service, horrible customer support web site, and they are still trying to fix their newest client. Bringing in new players right now would be a mistake IMO because many of them would see these massive problems, leave the game, and NEVER come back.

I wouldn't.

 

[Landicine]

There has been random spawn in the past (the original golem and ant spawns). I would like to see more like that, but I think there should be a balance between dynamic and static spawn. People sometimes what the direction and consistency of static spawn. Those of us who are explorers can't take for granted there are those who aren't.

As for being told the start and end of events, I think that is a necessary evil. Back during the seer program, there were lots of dynamic long-term events that people didn't always know about. These events attracted only a small fraction of the population, and because of this, those who participated were branded as cliquish. While this wasn't a fair judgement, it is how things went. People want to take part in stories, but they also need some direction. A good reference on this is:

http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/myschyf2.shtml

 

[Emil IsTemp]

I think were both borg Loqucious =).

Maybe we should really flood the customer service # and ask why we dont have customer service... every hour on the hour.

Those of us with enough minutes or a LAN at least..

 

[Loqucious]

I think were both borg Loqucious =).

Maybe we should really flood the customer service # and ask why we dont have customer service... every hour on the hour.

Those of us with enough minutes or a LAN at least..

Hehe

 

[Connor_Graham]

One of the Dev's mistakes is the introduction of new areas to hunt in, or even old ones with new things added like the Virtue arties, with items that once you get a full set of, you never need to go there again. They should have introduced useful things that need replenishing on a regular basis. For example they could have added a Quest Giver outside of Hythloth (and all of the other old dungeons). This quest giver (a poor Alchemists apprentice tasked by his master but scared out of his wits to enter the dungeon) could give a quest to venture inside and slay demons to capture their essence in a special flask given to the player by the quest giver. The more powerful the demon the better the odds of successfully capturing an essence. Once enough have been obtained, the quest giver can transform the essence into Demon Oil, which when applied to any weapon, gives that weapon Demon Slayer property for 2 hours. Same thing for Wrong and the other dungeons. Shame could be used to provide a quest that would either give a magical shovel or wood saw that would bump up the level of either ore or wood when used, and in the case of ores, would stack on both the prospector's tool and the garg pick. Instead we got arties that got farmed until everyone had a set, then the dungeons were pretty much abandoned again.

Things like these would still be wanted and needed the next day, the next week, and even the next year. We need more of things like this in the game.

 

[love2winalot]

Quote: you hit the nail on the head as far as them killing the adventure part of this game..we are getting way to much info on certain events before they even happen...its nice to walk into an area and say WTF IS THAT??..rather then know before hand and know what to take and what you'll get for it...*log in..go kill, take what i wanted..log out*, thats basicly whats happening with these events now. end quote

I disagree. This statement is those who live on staratics, uo guide, the rest of the internet. ect ect

The average player does just the opposite. They simply log into the game, and go about doing what they do. I have seen several players walk up at the turn in point behind the bank, and ask, "What's going on"? How many players died before Greater Dragons were named as such? Hell, how many people have found something they never saw before, and came here to ask about it, and found out it was leftover from an event years ago?

I even saw the wanted poster that is still up on Ricardo at the lina bank on LS. Almost NONE of the game/event/ect information is actually in the game itself. You have to go look for it, and more often than not, have to look in several places.

So, anyone who wants to know, WTF is that? All they have to do, is stay off the boards.

 

[Otis Firefly]

regardless of someones time on the boards, or someone who just takes a peak to see what info is there, or someone who is getting there info second hand from someone who is checkin the boards...it really doesnt matter. if the average player base isnt reading the boards for the event info! thats awesome!!, and i wish it were true cuz then i would stop coming here myself and go back to looking around in game, i think its split 50/50 as far as people who check the boards or have someone who does check them, filling them in...its just an opinion!..i still believe were getting to much info!..and at the same time i know its as easy as not visiting the boards period! but..then you dont know whats going on and you know theres a spot to take a look see!..so basicly im talkin outta my ass right now cuz itll never happen and i dont think ill stop lookin!..so ignore what im sayin, most people know i talk gibberish anyway lmao

 

[zeroshade]

Heres what i would do to start

Monsters:
1. Stop having monsters drop dumb crap loot and gold (some would still drop gold like dragons, and humanoids what does a liche need gold for??)
2. Monsters would then drop regents and special resources needed for crafting
3. Change all the dungeons to have a hard hard boss that requires teamwork to kill something along the lines of sudiva strength. (Yes theres peerless) maybe have each dungeon have a peerless type monster.

 

[Melina Havelock]

Heres what i would do to start

Monsters:
1. Stop having monsters drop dumb crap loot and gold (some would still drop gold like dragons, and humanoids what does a liche need gold for??)
2. Monsters would then drop regents and special resources needed for crafting
3. Change all the dungeons to have a hard hard boss that requires teamwork to kill something along the lines of sudiva strength. (Yes theres peerless) maybe have each dungeon have a peerless type monster.

1. For one thing it's easy gold for a new player or a vet starting over on a new shard. If I restart on a new shard with nothing, I am glad to loot 67 gold from a skeleton.
2. The main reason (aside from item properties) I quit crafting is because of the stupid way we have to collect resources thanks to ML. Not everyone, even with 5-7 character choices, likes to hunt.
3. No. I shouldn't have to have a group to go to despise.

 

[Joyous2K]

you hit the nail on the head as far as them killing the adventure part of this game..we are getting way to much info on certain events before they even happen...its nice to walk into an area and say WTF IS THAT??..rather then know before hand and know what to take and what you'll get for it...*log in..go kill, take what i wanted..log out*, thats basicly whats happening with these events now.

I am still looking for the turtles that Numan spoke about, but that was just a gag. They don't actually exist in UO. SO that clue was a trick, throwing us off the scent. The actual trail was Turn Ins and they deceptively provided no clues about that on the NPCs.

EDIT: Sorry OP... yes marketing would be good. Who knows they even have SA to take screen shots of? It may be "optimized for 2D" now. KR can play it, but we see pink squares and white squares or nothing at all, but we take everyone's word for it that it is there.