You must avenge my death, Kimba. Ah, I mean Simba.
People have been asking me lately to bring IPY back. Not really anything new enough to provoke an entire post.. mostly because I’ve been getting asked the same questions for years now. My answers have always been the same, so a new post rehashing all of that would be dumb (and thus, you can probably look for it in the near future).
What’s intriguing at the moment is WHY the requests have picked up.
Lack of MMOs to play isn’t the answer here. Warhammer just came out, WoW is releasing an expansion, and even the MOST trusting of our community have Darkfall beta to look forward to.
So no, it’s not so much lack of something to play as it is the fact that the current Pre-UO:R server has hit the skids.
What’s interesting is that I’m being asked qutie often to bring IPY back up intact, or load the most recent save. But these players are constantly jumping from server to server for whatever reason sounds good at the time - and they’re not afraid to completely start over to do it. However difficult and time consuming, maybe starting over in UO is fun. Or one of the only challenges that MUST be toppled before the game turns into a third person shooter.
Of course, much of the reason people “shard hop” is supposedly because of dwindling populations. However, from what I’ve been told, there are two main Pre-UO:R servers at the moment - both with relatively similar populations.
We face a question here:
Do people shard hop so readily on these servers because of a fine balance of factors that make the experience realistic that they become incredibly fickle about their gameplay experience, moving on to the newest server whenever the opportunity arises because several of an infinite number of possible grains of sand have fallen to cause them to become displeased with their current UO environment?
Or has UO, in the strict and sterile form that Pre-UO:R players DEMAND it be in… ultimately just a little too flat.
I’ve commented many times on how I struggled to make tiny, relatively unnoticeable tweaks to the game because of how tied the community had my hands. I realized that any MAJOR changes would bring forth waves of papier-mache clad nerdbarians hurling Cones of Catass +5.
Has this steadfast demand for the iceman of online gameplay ultimately doomed their own community?
As fun as the core gameplay can be - and as much MORE fun as suspension of reality, immersion and nostalgia can make it - can these people actually be wandering off without knowing why, dissatisfied with a monster they helped create?
IPY was a good idea. It was a good idea for about a year.
It was a good idea for about a year to help people relive something they’d been dying to relive for years. If it were to live on, it had to change. I realized that, and was in the process of having several new systems coded in when I shut the server down. I wasn’t willing to accept both the crap I had been enduring already along with whatever new crap the changes would have brought along, so the server went away. And not because I was a jerk and all of the complainers were still steadfastly supporting the server through thick and thin and would have continued to forever, either. That much is obvious be the.. what, 10?.. Pre-UO:R servers since IPY, and each and every one of their failures.
To put it more simply I’d probably just ask you to consider whether you’d be playing UO right now on EA servers had they kept a few Pre-UO:R servers in stasis back in 99/2000.
If you answer yes, please go ahead and choke yourself blue. Now repeat until you’re being honest.
An MMO can’t stay the same indefinitely. It’s just a fact. It will stagnate and die. Yes, even if you REALLY LOVE that MMO. Changing visions and changing management sometimes change that evolving MMO into something you don’t like, or something you like less. That doesnt’ mean that you’d have been happy with it staying the same for 10 years. It certainly doesn’t mean you’d still be giving them your money in ten years.
So what do you think?
Am I wrong? Did each and every server fail (IPY because Azaroth is a faggot!) for a multitude of individual reasons, or would they have ultimately failed anyway when people realized that there’s not much to do in UO 1999 compared to shiny new games, and especially with a playerbase of 90% PvPers.
As far as I’m concerned, the circle of life for these things just keeps getting shorter and shorter. They’re not adapting, so they’re dying. Simple stuff.
-Az
September 24th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Generally speaking, you could look at a matured MMO in hindsight as being in “stages”. The first stage is the Learning stage. This is when a player has just installed the game and is coming to grips with the game play, which occurs throughout the first few months of the game’s release. The second stage is the Journey (which overlaps with the first stage). This is when the player explores and develops and progresses their character up until a certain “end point”, which also occurs at the game’s infancy. The third stage is the End Game, i.e. what players can do to further progress their character (the Journey – Part Deux).
The length of each stage can be directly proportional to players’ interests and the longevity of the game. If stage one is too difficult, players will be turned off from the offset of the game. If stage two is too long, players will become bored or frustrated when they come to the realization that in order to progress their character, they must invest obscene amounts of time.
After setting up an accessible and well-paced game, we now move on to Stage three. Stage three is arguably the crux of the issue and the downfall of many of the MMO’s around today. Players have reached the “end” of your game; how do you keep them hooked? Content and changes (evolution) is the logical answer. Keeping up to date with player demands is very difficult and presents a range of issues and concerns for the aspiring developer to ponder over.
Of course, there is a limit to the number of times you can alter something or give it a fresh coat of paint, but leaving an MMO static is most certainly going to shorten its lifespan and lead to its downfall.
Let me put this in perspective for a Pre-UO:R shard; as (Pre-UO:R) veterans, we’ve already been through all of the “stages”.
Learning? We already know how to move around Britannia, bind hot keys and train ourselves.
The Journey? Well, we also have knowledge on how to strengthen our characters the quickest and most efficient way (e.g. macroing). We also know the world of Britannia very well. When you think about it, this reduces the Journey to a rather shallow and uninspiring experience (the first time around it was fantastic, though!)
What are we left with? The End Game. As veterans, we already know what is awaiting us; dungeon crawls, PvP, crafting, hanging out with friends and so on. Maybe the odd event here and there. We know this content. It’s nothing new. So, where does that leave us? Running around being nostalgic for a few months before giving up and moving on. Perhaps congregating with other UO players on the next flavor of the month shard, or MMO, or FPS, etc.
On one hand, players want a static replication of UO in 1999; but in a few months, they will have gotten their fix of nostalgia and move on. In an attempt to counter this, you can try to implement changes to mix things up a bit. Unfortunately such attempts are usually futile, since players are expecting Pre-UO:R game mechanics, so the most you can get away with is very subtle changes. And even these can result in players leaving anyway. I like to call this the double-edged Pre-UO:R sword. Either way, you can’t win in the long run. :)
Well, that’s how I feel about the whole thing anyway. The bottom line is: a game without new content/updates/goals/objectives is unlikely to hold players’ attention in the long run. Especially a game that’s over 10 years old and “set” in a static era.
(Yeah, there are exceptions to the things I said. Note that I’m a keen UO punter as well).
September 24th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Hey, it’s a bleak picture. But I agree. You can’t win.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I think that you do need to add to a game from time to time, but i feel the reason why current UO EPIC FAILED is because they changed the combat and they also changed the world rules.
UO was a very well thought out concept as far as im concerned. Pre-UOR had everything in proper form. The only “Safe Zones” were in town and in dungeons even though there were alot of riches to be made were dangerous. It added an Element that regular AI couldn’t it allowed regular players to be evil and prey on people who were the “good” charachters. It allowed a freedom of choice.
It was non-linear, you could be running around on a newbie char and bump into a daemon or a lich which to a newbie is usually death. You didn’t have to do quests and grind to get a level with a certain amount of xp and you could always change your charachter if you didn’t like it by taking up a new skill.
Magic weapons also were good for one reason, you didn’t know what was going to drop and invul or vanq piece and the attributes and type of armor/weapon were random too. Ofcourse they didn’t show up as often as lower items which made it harder to get them. And if you have to face a pk during your “hunt” then that also added an element of randomness to whether or not you were going to get that item, or if you were going to die there and lose it even if you did get it.
The game was based on player skill, not what class and what uber spell you have or spec you have, and also wasn’t based on items where you get the uber sword of killingmofos and go around killing everything in sight because of its power.
UO had a proper balance and a good concept, I had fun just chilling with a few friends doing some anti, or going on a hunt maybe to kill some ancient wyrms. I also enjoyed the solo things in game too like crafting or setting up a vendor etc. The houses also added an element to the game, obviously if someone knows where your house is they know you’re going to be there sooner or later which allowed some people to do ambushes or some friends to find you if they were bored.
I don’t mind the house customization tool osi released and some of the ideas are good. I still think that they didn’t capitalize on T2A enough they could have done more with it. I don’t like how they tried to restrict pvp, when that was like a huge plus to the game. There were many places guards were including minoc mine so crafters had semi-safe places to mine etc.
It needs a graphics engine overhaul, but i do not like the current client that osi is bringing out. It also has too much landmass because they have trammel and felucca and t2a and malas etc. I don’t mind extra dungeons or even a small landmass extension for players to place a few more houses, but it has to be scaled to the active population of a server.
Another thing i used to love is Order/chaos battles, because I liked how you didn’t have to be a pk to fight others and it was also a contest. Same with guild wars (not the game) you could declare on a guild that was pissing you off and then you could kick the crap out of each other without going red.
They could have added more animals more dungeons more features etc, more furniture. Trivial things that don’t change the core of the game maybe make it slightly more challenging.
This is really what i think of UO as a whole and MMO’s in general.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
so asre you opening ipy or not liolollol
September 26th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Ah, Mandrake, but think of it through the eyes of a new player.
That daemon or lich that they’ve just encountered as a freshly rolled 50 Swordsmanship/25 Animal Lore/25 Tinkering character isn’t very fun. Being placed in a level-appropriate area where winning is generally pretty guaranteed is MUCH more fun. Same thing goes for PKing.
Think about your audience. Not everyone is a healthy 16-29 male. There are mothers, children, people with disabilities, seniors — How fun do you think exceptionally difficult experiences and the requirement for crack pvp skillz is for these people? (Think about it this way — It’s about as fun as you facing a person in WoW or EQ with gear that you simply /cannot possibly/ get, because it takes a year and a half and you dont’ have that kind of time — In other words, they have the unfair upperhand, you have no chance, it’s gay and it sucks. Not to mention that if you’re a grandmother or disabled or whatever that it makes you feel bad about yourself).
Now, ten years ago when nerdraging teenage males were the ONLY people on the internet, that’s all well and good. But nowadays, if you want to make money and not fail miserably, you have to consider the rest of your audience.
However, we ARE talking about UO. And I think you brought up something interesting.
There was a bit of rage there about player skill vs. mofo classes, etc. Well, Nox Mages and Scribe Mages and such ARE mofo classes that rockpaperscissors your ass once in a while. I can’t remember if it was this post or another, but we just discussed how that type of thing is totally necessary to a new game - and how oldschool UO players refuse to see it in their UO. These people want everyone to be generally the same so that player skill is what matters, solely.
Of course, then half of them go out and script PvP for an upper hand, but whatever.
September 26th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Keuse:
If you’re hoping for IPY to come back any time soon - it’s not gonna happen.
I suppose I could throw the old IPY files back up next week. But that’s not going to happen for so, so many reasons.
I appreciate the interest, though. I’m starting to feel a bit like OSI on this issue. People keep asking, I keep saying no.
Though for all of the faults with the idea, if I thought that I’d put up IPY next week and there’d be 2000 people constantly logged in, I’d strongly consider doing it. If for no other reason than to make people happy.
I’d have a long list of conditions, though. Not demands of the players, but demands of myself and of what I’d do with the shard.
Frankly, though, I think if I put IPY back up, I’d probably see.. maybe 500 clients logged in. Maybe even less. After six months, half that. I just honestly don’t think the demand is what it once was.
I’m happy you guys have servers to play on, but for a million and one reasons - it’ll probably never be IPY again.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Is it a population thing preventing you from setting up the server again? Money? Bandwidth? A box to run it on?
I’ve got 2800+ MMORPG players, the hardware, and the funds to make it move for you over at Citizen’s Coup Network (http://www.citizenscoup.net). We’ve got you covered if your interested.
Maybe you and I should talk. Worst case scenario, it’d be nice to catch up.
davectr@gmail.com
September 27th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Well, no. There are quite a few factors beyond questions about population levels.
Though no, I absolutely don’t think the demand exists anymore.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:50 pm
tbh, I dont play any shards atm, and i know a whole bunch of others that dont as well because no other shard has been able to match ipy. I know for a fact if you put it up again everyone would be logging back on.
Since you were in the pvp circle you know how intense the fighting was on ipy. it was the best of the best. other shards that try to copy dont come close even though a few of us have from time to time gone to those shards.
I know that even in your own circle Az that there are probably people you know in the same boat.
I’d log in to have a few more fights with c2w or ? or TP or anyone else for a matter of fact. I was on ipy from both times it started and I really miss my tower.
if it was something you wanted to add to the game, the few suggestions i put up i dont think many people would have problems with that. would just add some interest.
Do you even remember how much fun it was when you were pvping, i was in fku and even though alot of us died because we didn’t script i still had a ton of fun.
I still dont know how Miller survives dumps, but he did it on Redemption too.. ill admit it that’s skill.
anyways, Plz email me if you do decide to put it up i check emails more than here i dont know if u can see it from ur side but ill leave it at that for now.
Some other memories that im fond of is seeing the re-appearance of Alice Cooper and his guild. on OSI i was a miner who suffered the wrath of Alice. and I also saw alot of old pvpers from chesapeake. I played minoc chesapeake as my hometown since beta and i still have my account active “its sad”. i also remember moonglow and the fighting there between a couple of guilds including “ME” lol. Funny thing is i only remember one guy from that guild,, Chineseboi. I remember going into pk valley with fku and trying to hide outside of TP guildhouse to try and ambush them when they gate in. I remember fighting c2w outside of the solen hive 4 on 4 and we kept on going back and forth. There was no clear winner. Yes, I like to reminice but I believe IPY still has life if you would give it a chance. Hey, I and so many others stuck through redoing everything after the wipe. Shows how much all those players believed.
Anyways, if you have the old files you probably have most of the emails,, if u sent one to most of them im sure most would come back.. maybe with friends.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Well, the last thing I’m looking to do is put something up that people want to “log in a few times and have a few fights”.
Which isn’t a knock on your desire to play it. I’m just concerned about the long-term viability of a Pre-UO:R shard, which I’ve been over on this blog many times.
Remember - it’s fun for you to play. Log in and log out when you want. But I have to watch it 24/7 like a hawk. It’s a lot of work, and I DON’T want to disappoint people again by bringing another shard down - it’d especially hurt to put up IPY, have a low population, and have to bring it down due to lack of interest.
I might consider putting a shard up. Wouldn’t be IPY, though. And first, I’d have to both find a quality set of coders and obtain permission from the RunUO guys to use their software again. It’s free, yes, but I’ve had my differences with those guys in the past (especially Ryan) and I’d demand of MYSELF that I had their blessing before I touched it again.