by Azaroth | August 3rd, 2009
Recently, a charming young man brought up the idea that perhaps the medium doesn’t matter, only the content. I disagree. The medium is the message. It always matters. But UO as a medium isn’t a bad thing, and that’s the point. So in a way, he was correct.
Well. It’s not a bad thing depending on your expectations for what you’re doing. If you’re trying to make a bunch of cash and reach hundreds of thousands of users, UO is a bad place to start. A very, very bad place to start.
But from the perspective of a player, if UO is already what you want – why look for a 3D wrapping? Especially if it often doesn’t even deliver as well as the original. If I want to play World of Warcraft, I can go play it. Ultima Online is something different and something unique.
It’s not the light bulb, but it’s a great hybrid between social and content creation play and everything else an online RPG usually is. That’s the charm of the worlds it creates, I think. It’s a specific kind of experience that allows existence a little more honestly in an online world. It’s not Second Life, but my existence in the world actually has some sort of effect on others and on the world itself. And I’m still playing a game, not just watching people yiff on flying penis ships.
It’s about everyone. In a post-shitstorm conversation I had with a UO Producer once, the words “UO isn’t about every single little group of players” were uttered. I’m paraphrasing of course – I don’t have the original email. But I completely disagreed and I still do. I disagree because that opinion is counterproductive to what I think the game really is. Not what it can only be – but what it’s best fit to be. They say you can’t build a MMO for everyone. Well, that’s a shame. But UO is the best place to try. Not just because it existed before, but because it’s the best you have at the moment for doing it again.
Plus, I just happen to love UO. It’d sure be nice to give it a multi-million dollar makeover, but I’m not certain that’ll ever happen. In fact, even if it did, I’m not certain it’d even be profitable.
So what’s the point of this post? I clearly stated long ago that I’d never again become a martyr for a community as relentlessly selfish as MMO players. If there’s no money involved, what am I doing?
Well, this post is an introduction to discussion. Exactly what I’m doing and why I’m doing it will be one of those discussions. However, I still consider this entire situation a consideration at this point. Because I want to discuss some things does not mean IPY 2.0 goes up next week. It just means that I want to discuss some things – and it also means that at some point, IPY 2.0 very well might go up. However, that’s an announcement. This is a discussion.
As far as this particular post – we’re not going to jump onto any advanced topics, we’re just looking at IPY 2.0.
The problem with throwing the old IPY code up tonight is that a bunch of things need to change if the shard is to survive longer than a year.
For one, EasyUO. I have no idea what its creators intended when they made the program, but it’s been a dagger in the bleeding side of the game for many years now. I won’t launch without significant counter measures. Total and utter destruction of the ingame economy isn’t even my chief concern. People using the program to automate PvP to make up for their own lack of skill is something I can’t sit back and watch happen again. I present a fair playing field or none at all. People that lose their fights will just need to spend time practicing like everyone else.
Besides, cheating in PvP is more the style of the griefer and not the PvPer. By definition, a PvPer is a player who actively seeks and thrives on a challenge. A griefer is a player who tends to avoid honest challenges at all cost. I’m interested in presenting an outlet for that challenge to the PvPers. What I’m not interested in is catering to griefers. If you don’t care in the least for the game and would like nothing more than to see it burn to the ground, don’t expect me to do you any favours. That’s all.
It’s something I won’t budge on. I could have the shard recoded completely this very second and it wouldn’t go online until I was reasonably sure that the use of EasyUO would be halted or very significantly hampered. Of course, it’s also a fantasy of mine to eliminate voice programs and third party programs of any kind (Razor, UOA, etc). But.. let’s concentrate on the big problems first.
Keep in mind that as we move forward with discussion, this is not a discussion about IPY 3.0. This meaning that even if an IPY 3.0 were to come into existence I would still simultaneously or preemptively launch a straight IPY with minimal changes or additions from the old ruleset. The reasoning being that people want a classic UO server, and that players should be given a choice between IPY and the natural ruleset evolution that followed IPY – to utilize simultaneously, exclusively, or to switch back and forth as they please depending on their current satisfaction level with either ruleset. I’d of course do so in the hope that I wasn’t poaching too greatly from the owners of existing free servers, and would potentially reconsider the existence of an IPY 2.0 if they had serious qualms with the idea. It is, after all, a space I vacated some years ago. The time is now for that discussion if they’d like to have it with me.
For now, onward. I’m interested in suggestions from potential users on the following topics strictly regaring IPY 2.0. Today we’ll start with EasyUO. How has it affected you in the past. How have you used it in the past? What do you feel its effect on the world is, and most important… what are your ideas to hamper its use?
Of course, I can’t bring up things I’ve already made up my mind. Mostly because I think I’m right, or else I wouldn’t have made up my mind conclusively. So feel free to add your own topics in and perhaps challenge my perception on something you feel is important.
As always, I’m interested in coders. Depending on what I need exactly if I do intend to go forward with at least one new server, I’ll be looking for applications for coding positions.
Please keep in mind, however, that I’m not interested in anything but people with clear ambitions in advancing their current career. That means that I want people who are employed, looking for something to put on a resume to get ahead, and can provide references and an employer to contact. I won’t even consider someone for a split second if there is no resume, no references, and no current genuine employment with contacts. I apologize to everyone else – but there’s a certain type of person I’m interested in and a certain type of person I’m not. The second kind have made this a necessary step.
Specifically, we’re talking about people holding down lower level jobs in the MMO industry that want something solid and shiny to add to their experience that will capture the eye of their employer. The type of person I’m looking for here is the guy or gal that understands the value of being a part of a successful, visible project and what that can bring to their resume and their chances of career advancement in the industry.
However, more about that is more suited for a recruitment post and a separate website.
For now, try to stick to the topic, boys and girls. For anything else, my email is azaroth@gmail.com.
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I heard Rixus was looking for a job…
BK IS BACK, BLAST FROM THE PAST SUCKAS
WELCOME BACK DEWD
I hear Rixus is still livin’ large off that $4k he screwed thousands of people for in ’04.
Ah, just kidding. I’ve spoken to him since and he was never that bad of a guy. But yes, that sort of thing is kind of what I have in mind.
IPY is going back up tomorrow?! yay! :P
I never used easy uo, mostly because I didn’t know how to use it or even tried. Plus it would have made playing..well…easy. I have seen what it does to the game. I probably would have gotten bored faster if I had used the program.
I get the feeling that I’m just going to have to design around the problem on my own. Which is unfortunate, because while I’m trying not to change the original IPY ruleset too much I’ll likely end up making the countermeasures largely ineffective.
I’d really appreciate if people chimed in with some ideas.
I’ve been reading this article for the past couple days over and over, trying to come up with some sort of approach to go in with.
First off I am not prepared so I will follow this up with an ACTUAL POST.
Look frankly speaking, you got a lot of things to consider and reconsider and finally gut check and then maybe maybe just maybe a feasible viable potential option can emerge but in the mean time lets keep the beakers bubbling and brainstorm and discuss these things as we have been doing.
I’ll get at you either tonight or tomorrow morning when I finally finish typing up a real response.
thanks its good to be back, i just got back from afghanistan last week and im finally getting out of the marine corps after 4 years woooo
Az, I agree with your position on EUO. It’s definitely the most destructive third-party app ever made for UO (even worse than UOExtreme). I’m not sure how you get around it, but it would be a huge plus for the project if you could figure it out. Both Razor and the UO Client have gotten a bit ridiculous over the years. Sticky bars is a pretty lame addition. I keep people’s bars up the entire time I play now – just in case I run into them again. Smart targetting is pretty retarded too, but I don’t use it.
Does RunUO have the ability to disable certain features on Razor now?
If the economy gets trashed, UO loses its fun :(
UO loses its fun if any one of a million things happens. It’s a tricky thing these days. People have their idealized memories of what exactly their experience should be like and IF IT DEVIATES FROM THE PLAN BROTHER, WHY I OUGHTA ETC.
Cheating just happens. We can all get together and sing kumbayah about how cheating sucks and ruins the game for everyone, but people are still going to cheat. Putting breakers in to the design to counteract what we know as harmful cheats is the idea when you’re short of an actual way to stop something cold. A useless spell like reactive armour is changed so that wearing it causes multiple spells cast from multiple targets that hit a single target within a certain number of miliseconds to be reflected back at their casters. If RA was more useful than I remember, you do it some other way.
The point is that throwing punkbuster on machines isn’t kosher (and I’d never, ever, ever even suggest it), but what we can do in this post is throw around some thoughts for fixing the problems that these things cause directly.
IPY style though. Small changes that don’t alter anything too significantly but that aim to fix the problems that come with being ten years in the future.
Even compiling a list of problems that something causes is helpful so that others can attack it.
Honsetly, ganking countermeasures aren’t really necessary unless a shard’s population reaches IPY status. For the shards in the 300-500 online, most guilds roll in groups of 2-6. IPY was tough because you had guilds that had 10+ people on at the same time. Fortunately, most of them couldn’t sync. Limiting vendor gold supply seems to be a pretty decent way to protect the economy from EUO botters, but they can still GM their skills with ease.
The problem with starting to roll too heavy on the countermeasures is that you end up with IPY 3.0 instead of IPY 2.0.
Limiting vendor gold supply seems like a fine idea at first glance. You can even mess with the way that resources spawn and are collected somewhat. But once you get into skills and macroing, I think you might end up on a whole other level. Enticing people to actually play the game and not macro their skills is a noble goal – but only after you make the experience of doing so for the players worthwhile, rewarding, and at least somewhat entertaining. You’re starting to skip ahead from 2.0 into 3.0 at this point. And I’ve already made up my mind on all of that. If it happens.
But I’ll shut my cakehole for now and listen to everyone else. Whenever I happen to mention something about UO, someone else usually thinks it’s a good idea and starts putting it into their shard. So, I’m actively listening. Now is the time to present your opinion, guys. Honestly. Hell, if you love cheating and love sync dumps and love macroing and love huge explosion boxes that take out all of Britain – present your freaking case now. You want double hally hit bugs coded into the shard? You want pink fluffy bunnies to follow everyone around on Mondays to cheer them up? You have your chance, I’m listening and considering everything. I want to know what people want and why you think it makes sense.
Wai-wai-wai-wai-wait a sec…
…EasyUO is a program… that can automate… PvP?
Seriously??????????
I am being 100% honest – I had no idea there was a cheat program for UO. I thought that was a running joke about the “good guilds” like us in [?] or FS! or c2w.
Holy shit, that explains a LOT. Particularly about servers post IPY… which I would play for 2 days and humbly move the fuck on with my life (usually about the time I noticed that people were getting off spells on different timers than IPY… FISHY!!!!!! HMMMMM)
I’m at a loss for words. I’m guessing with EasyUO, from what I’ve read you guys talking about, you can write decent (for UO) scripts that automate PvP or gold farm botting, etc? I mean I thought I was dope with writing a script to train warrior skills with mage skills while macroing up a 7x… guess I have no idea. I’m honestly surprised, and I don’t know why exactly. I just always have assumed that the biggest problem with cheaters on UO were people who used speed hacks (which I thought was taken care of after IPY started to get big).
How to stop that? Well I mean you can systematically dilute any exploitable cheese that people are botting or scripting but again that does take away from the true game. Who cares though? Fuck up the NPC gold return on shields if thats what it takes. Is that what people bot? I’m just guessing here so I don’t have many ideas and I’m not going to speculate any more.
Ok well besides that gaping abyss of a problem that you have to avoid/deal with/stymie, you’ve been hitting on other points.
You aren’t trying to clone IPY but you aren’t trying to cop the flavor off of other gimped out other indie servers (which are absolute nonfactordom btw). Ok, got that… then what are you trying to do? I’m just a little concerned, I don’t fully understand what you’re saying about “2.0 vs 3.0″ to be honest… can you clarify a little?
BTW I talked to Rixus too before DF launch. He seemed pretty chilled out, dunno where he went off to though.
I’ve also read your followup about customer service… that’s not really a big problem. If it’s non-commercial then it just boils down to trust. Now, far be it from me, but I think you can come up with a legit list of people who would have your back on a project like this. *cough*
I think Avernus brings up a good point, theres been a trend in MMOs lately about “bigger is better” which I think personally detracts from the “avatar” persona you’re striving for in a game. In a typical MMO you’re trying to be a unique badass superhero to accomplish your goals (usually high goals or outstanding in some way), which is sort of muddled by the fact that everything in the modern MMO takes massive amounts of people (Realm vs Realm, etc). I think that’s great and all, but I’m honestly concerned with the paradox created by “Be the superhero!” concept fighting against the fashionable “Create a monumentally zerged out swarm to experience total rapage XL9000 content!!! Defeat the other army!!!!” In reality you’re just a number in that type of situation and it also just creates a seperate “Meta Game” where the people running the groups are playing on a different level entirely than the masses. That is NEVER a good thing. Ever.
While a game like UO has a literal limit on how many are going to be on screen at one time with its isometric view, LoS dynamics, static movement speeds, and collision detection, I think it’s definitely reasonable to expect groups in 2009 in ANY online game to roll deeper than they did 5 years ago. Just how it is these days. I don’t know if it will ever change. Maybe when people realize zerg vs zerg is, to put it bluntly, boring as paint drying on a wall.
Do I have any specific recommendations for what needs to go in? Not sitting here replying in a blog. If this was hands on then people would be in the mode to really brainstorm and bang out the details and fluff that made IPY unique in the first place.
I got a lot of things I could talk about but I feel this is just inadequate to talk about in this lengthy post by this point.
Lets keep it going though, this convo and everything, and it will start to perculate to the surface of everyone’s desires and intentions and you can iron out things in a more appropriate way later on.
Sorry if this is hard to read but it’s just such a MEGA topic that I feel confused about where to start voicing about things.
More real talk, please. :)
Double hally hits? Gank squads? That’s all downstream, but you’re right, it’s good idea to prepare for. But wait, theres more down the line that hasn’t even picqued your thoughts yet.
Anthrax envelopes?
Regarding zerg squads-
A lot of us that chose to roll in small groups were really successful on IPY. I’d wager that we made way more money (regs, gold, etc) than any of the zerg guilds did. Not only were we better pvpers and more organized, but the loot spreads a lot among 3-5 people than it does among 10+. To some extent, the zergs are like shooting fish in a barrel. They run around like retards, incapable of organizing their actions for one sync’d drop. After you drop a few, the rest bail out and you loot the corpses.
It’s really just a ration thing. If I’m rolling in a group of 3, I want to fight groups that have 3-6 players. Anything over 6, I’m not getting loot – one of their retarded members will be busy looting instead of fighting.
More thoughts later… Gotta go do some research in the field on UO Second Age (gay server).
Alright, I’m understanding your desire for sync dumps from that example. On one hand, it can even the odds if a small group is outnumbered.
On the other hand, if you’re that badly outnumbered at all you’re kind of fucked anyway, and whenever you do get into an even fight everything becomes about sync dumps and it’s exceptionally stupid. That’s what should be focused on.
The best solution would be tweaking PvP to encourage small group tactics and discourage large groups. Gently.
I think spell bounces ultimately lean that way. It’d also make the experience of fighting even or near even odds much better.
Or hey, we could instance PvP. You encounter an_group_of_pks! Fight / Run ??
Yaht: Here’s an example of what I mean by 2.0 vs. 3.0.
I want to get rid of sync dumps. My _real_ goal is to promote small groups and discourage large groups/ganking while getting the cheese out of PvP and having people rely more on their ability to fly by the seat of their pants.
To me, that’s the old days. Two groups would run into each other and, more often than not, since there was no vent and no target coordination and whatnot, even two large groups meeting would break up into a bunch of small group PvP.
IPY 2.0 is just IPY. Plain IPY. But I always said I would never relaunch IPY without fixing some serious problems. Or at least trying to come close. That’s this discussion – and the discussions we’ll have on this blog for the forseeable future.
IPY 3.0 is something you may or may not ever see. It’s my imaginary fantasy land UO project where I attack every problem in the way I see best regardless of how it might change the game. It’s my personal opinion that people would get pissed off if an IPY3 went up with no IPY2 existing. It’d be a little like UO:Renaissance. What I think is best might not always be what you think is best, and you might very well just want to play the server without all of the changes.
Well, the easiest way to disable the advantage of voice chat and sync is to make damage delay a variable number. If everyone casts ebolt at the same time, but damage hits at different times, that enables some to heal. Unfortunately, that would really fuck up 1v1. UO pvp has always been about timing, so I guess I don’t see anything wrong with sync’d dumps.
For IPY 3.0, it’d be nice to see some variation in templates/classes. One of the few things that I liked about WoW’s Arena pvp was the fact that you could come up with some pretty interesting combinations. People always bitched about one combo being too OP (Druid/Warrior), but it was interesting. UO technically makes the playing field level by having everyone play essentially the same template, but that doesn’t make for the most interesting experience.
If you want an idea of what not to do for pvp, play UO Second Age. 1v1 is so ridiculously gay that I try to avoid it whenever possible.
Explain?
I haven’t tried any of these servers.
By the way when I brought up zergs I am talking about the holistic aspect of the MMO community at large, and the games that have been coming out since IPY.
There aren’t really zergs in UO. There are gangbangs, but, thats like getting caught with your pants down – theres always an escape with a game featuring recall.
All of those servers Avernus is talking about are absolute shit. I mean *ABSOLUTE SHIT* as in 100% nonfactor type shit. I’m probably coming across brash but I’m being honest. Theres literally nobody playing them and they are all very.very.corrupt. Which is cool if you want to play a private server with friends but thats not what is presented.
And honestly dude, Az, voice comm has been around for a while you know that, and it’s not going anywhere. In fact, I wouldn’t play online games on the PC if it wasn’t for Vent. I’d literally look at the shitty headset you get with your 360, shrug my shoulders, and say “f it”
I can’t stop voice communication. What I want to do is mitigate the problems that I feel it causes.
I’m not interested in PvP if every group fight comes down to who sync dumps the best. Especially when it can be automated. That’s stupid.
Az-
How would you like to see group pvp work? I guess I’ve been working on ‘timing’ for so long that I can’t imagine UO without it. The automation is a problem, but regular syncs can be disrupted (assuming it’s not 10 people syncing ebolts).
I’m all for having a system that allows the best players to apply unique strategies in a way that allows them to win, but UO is pretty limited as it stands now. You’ve only got 64 spells and most of them are never used in pvp. If you want to get away from people syncing explo/eb combos, I think you need to address the overly simplistic spellbook. That steps outside of your idea for IPY 2.0, but regular UO can only be polished to a certain point.
Well, a couple comments ago I gave the jisty explanation. Explaining how I want 3.0 combat to work would be giving away my rich, creamy proprietary blend for free. If I can line up enough of the right people, I fully intend for 3.0 to be the true UO Robot Raptor Jesus. I’m not sure if people will love it or not – but *I* have a personal interest in putting it out there and seeing.
Main point is that I notice people getting a little nervous when I talk about changes. As far as 2.0 goes, try not to worry too much. The name of the game is minimally invasive. A few things might change, but I honestly think they’ll change for the better and mostly go unnoticed after a while.
On top of that, I fully intend to go with a fairly lenthy open beta. Something with a set time frame so people know what they’re getting into. This serves the dual purpose of giving me time to work things out and then getting to wipe the slate clean to erase any mistakes/economy problems/exploit aftermath.
I’ve always thought it’d be best if I could wipe the server once a year or so. It erases all of the problems that build up, you start again having learned from mistakes, and I honestly think people enjoy starting over on UO a little more than they’d admit. It seems tedious, but you know you love a fresh world on a serious server where building your characters actually means something.
I personally would be really interested in an IPY 3.0 that takes UO to a new place that it hasn’t been before.
As for wiping a server once a year, I get where you’re coming from. We obviously enjoy the idea of joining a new server. However, you don’t want it to feel like a treadmill without purpose. If you could present something that let’s long-term veterans feel like they get to carry something over, that would probably help a bit. Maybe it’s a title or maybe you sell deeds to things that can be purchased post-wipe. I don’t think people like the idea of entirely restarting, because part of UO is building your little world, but we do enjoy the rebuilding.
Well, it’s just a thought. Without changing the game entirely, things get pretty stale after you make your characters/get your tower/pvp for a while.
Some sort of takeaway from the whole thing once it rolls over is a good idea. But I’m not sure the wipe is a good idea in the first place.
Ideally, you’d like to be able to open NEW servers because there’s enough players creating a demand for it. Unfortunately that’s not very likely. Realistically the idea should be doing 3.0 so well that the problem is solved by people naturally gravitating toward it when they want something more and see 3.0 filling all of the holes they see in classic UO while still attempting to stay true to the things that made classic UO great.
How about some sort of Earthquake that randomly occurs and just wrecks the shit out of housing in a certain area, causing them to spontaneously decay and drop everything. That would bulwark against people just blatantly storing maaaaaaaaassive amounts of shit in their crib, force more activity in bank areas, etc. I know it sounds totally random and honestly, retarded, but I’m just trying to shock the monkey here a little bit.
Or maybe it could be a Langolier that just rolls thru areas and does the same thing. That’d be cool looking.
Or how about gold sinks to keep housing up, the amount dependant on the shit inside (like an NPC vendor upkeep sort of)
Ok it’s late on a friday so obviously I’m winging stupid ideas. This is starting to heat up though so lets get craaaaaazaaaay with the ideas!
It’d be funny if I got people all riled up for a new server while releasing information that was more and more wacky until people finally realized I was just screwing with them.
As far as IPY 3.0 – I feel it should be much like IPY2, but a racing stripe on the server case would look sharp.
hey yaht remember me and all the good times we had? obviously not because YOU CANT FUCKING SAY HI BK
Sick :)
Also, holy shit, it’s Yaht. Where the fuck have you been?
Also, unfortunately bk is still fat guys bagel king my ass more like fat king
Hello bagel king…
you are truly your brothers keeper.
Hi Root, I’ve been around the entire time. Where have YOU been…
rooters been working up the courage to try and talk to a woman for the last 4 years, but hes a pussy and it still hasn’t happened yet
If IPY 3.0 ever goes down, I want to remix all the .midis for it.
Just sayin.
I vote for a different method to post and share ideas (i.e. a forum).
If I set up a forum, would you guys promise to keep the gay porn spam confined to a designated thread?
Could make it private for now if you wanted.
Ugh I just had a nightmare, I dreamt I was as fat as bk phew glad it was a dream
Yaht, I’ve been here too. JUST WAITING 4 U BB
go comb your jew fro
This is already starting to sound like the IPY forums again.
/sigh
:)
Ah i want to play uo again :(
Restricting ezuo is an absolute must. A healthy server goes pair with an healthy economy. Ezuo ruins that(pvp aside). I remember some automated scripts to harvest lumber or iron ore for hours and hours.
Not only it turns the economy to complete shit but it also makes non-pvper players wanting to quit. And a server full of pvpers without the “carebear” side of the player base will go nowhere. There has to be some kind of balance, else people get bored and stop playing.
I know some of you dont like punkbuster but wouldnt it be a good way to block ezuo or at least make it less rampant?
you know you miss the ipy forums, i used to sit in my high school web design class and troll those forums, without ipy forums or #ipy i would have never graduated high school
Hector you don’t even say hi to me? Jerk
Bk don’t be stupid why would I comb my jewfro then it would just be any other fro and not a jewfro
ps. BK’s forearms are like a little girl’s
But yeah on topic, definitely restrict EasyUO. On other shards, when it’s allowed, people can easily afk collect hundreds of thousands of ingots a day, and Hector’s right, a bad economy fucks up the server.
rooter :D hihi
http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/47/l_b0210f9de4eb8be88157c6e8ea386ec6.jpg
those are not tiny forearms, those are the arms of god
re: EasyUO
EUO, or any current or future scripting platform is not a huge factor in pvp. i’m the author of a fairly advanced UO scripting platform and I don’t think any script could ever match the abilities of a small intelligent team using Vent. can it help noobs pvp? absolutely, but i still don’t see it as a threat to the balance of the game. nobody can download a script and become a pvp god.
regarding resources, that’s a very tricky subject i’ve thought about a bit. if you don’t want people to script, make it less of a bitch to gather resources. but then scripters will get even more loot. if you start an anti-scripting arms race you will lose and find the only reliable means is to manually track down suspected scripters and speak with them to see if they’re human. messing with spawns and shit i think will only negatively impact honest players. smart scripters will always figure out a way around a system, no matter how clever it is.
i think the only reliable anti-scripting measure would be a solid punkbuster setup. i’m not really against it either. you couldn’t stop vent, but you could stop client modification / library injection which would solve many problems.
re: resources (again)
i actually think the resources economy is pretty low on things that matter. who logs onto IPY to chop logs and mine ore for a living?
should that be a viable option? absolutely. the uo purist in me would love to see a normal healthy resources economy untainted by automation. however, the uo realist in me knows that every server in existence struggles with this problem.
one step towards limiting inflation would be to force resources to be sold to players only for the most part. very limited npc buying should be instituted.
beyond that i don’t think much should be changed. gross offenders should be tracked down and manually verified if manpower allows for it, but tbh i think player interaction by staff (in the form of events, etc.) is a better use of time than anti script enforcement.
i think we should just accept that the resources economy will be fucked in some way or another and move on.
I’ll give a honest effort to prevent the destruction of the economy.
One thing that’d be nice to have around would be some people very experienced with EUO scripting to attempt bashing against whatever I put in until they break it during beta.
If there’s no chance of solving a serious problem, then you should attempt to incorporate it.
You’re not going to be able to solve the problems that voice chat adds to UO. So include voice chat as a default part of the game.
Few people will use an outside chat program if you have it included and easy to use within the client.
Furthermore, by including voice chat as part of the game, you’ll be forced to address it in a meaningful way, rather than as an abstract outside variable. And you’ll also be able to tinker with the voice chat to decrease the problems you’ve mentioned here: if sync’d dumps are an issue, rather than making damage delay by a random amount, why not make the built-in voice chat delay by a random amount?
Well, because then people would go back to using other voice chat programs.
I also don’t have the luxury of unlimited manpower, unfortunately. Looking at solutions like that would require more than what I’m likely to have at my disposal.
On divinity there were a bunch of synchers, and they started banning people based on the synch times of all players combined.
Of course they all screamed bloody murder “WERE JUST THAT GOOD THERE IS NO CHEATING HOW HARD IS IT TO SYNC”
I’ve played all of the player run shards, here is the help you need to save the economy in advance and keep players in the dungeons instead of chopping wood unattendedly for 20 hours a day.
1) for the first few months, set craftables to have poor resale value back to vendors.
2) make provoke difficulty based to gain and/or extremely hard to gain (ie: it would take 2 1/2-4 weeks to gm of straight macroing )
3) increase monster gold based on difficulty (to encourage group activity/dungeon crawling)
4) increase resale value of monster loot
5) resource gathering skills (mining, lj) extremely hard to become proficient at
6) Healers outside of dungeons
7) Healing skill easier to gain until 80
8) *Very important* set anything above force weapons extermely rare
9)*Very important* set T-Map loot to lower than expected.
There are ways around synching:
1) Guilds creating the exact same character with the exact same name/dressing.
2) Have more counselors/hidden admins to track synching
3) Check logs to see synch times on target
Possibly adjust settings for the party system (Ie any guild with wars and/or murderers cannot add over X amount of players into a party)
And/or possibly apply the OSI faction heal settings onto warring guilds/murderers/people in a party (unable to positively affect those players)?
Just some ideas to combat cheating/zerging.
Some interesting stuff there.
I agree that the last two tiers of magic items should be exceptionally rare, too.