by Azaroth | February 21st, 2010
Over at Elder Game (one of my favorite blogs), Sandra talks a little about WoW’s Infinite Newbie Hose and how it continues to keep their systems running smoothly even after all these years.
Certainly the newbie hose is important to a game like WoW – like it is to any game. But something like UO is almost totally reliant on a good newbie hose to operate properly and not degenerate into Quake with swords and macroing.
What can you do to get the newbie hose flowing? What can you do to make sure it stays on? This question is of vital importance to a project like IPY. I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
For instance- when a new player logs in, how the hell do they know what to do? If they don’t have friends helping them or a pre-existing knowledge of how UO works, things look pretty intimidating. I imagine most of these types of users simply close the game and go elsewhere. How do you combat the feeling of helplessness a new user might feel when getting plopped down in a city with no idea how to control your character? The WASD keys don’t even work!
That was never a barrier for me when I started, because I was eager to figure the game out and there were no alternatives. UO was where it was at. Not so much anymore when you can choose from any of the four million MMOs begging you to play.
Of course, that assumes you’ve gotten them interested enough to play in the first place… which might even be a bigger question.
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“Of course, that assumes you’ve gotten them interested enough to play in the first place… which might even be a bigger question.”
Actually, it is. Do you imagine that the number of “newbie” players will be great enough that an accommodation is necessary?
Implementing a general guide, or tutorial via interface or .pdf is a good foundation to present new players with a feel for the game world, and is probably sufficient.
If you would like some assistance writing that in .pdf, I can probably help with that.
Look this is sort of a subject that doesn’t connect well to UO from WoW because of the distance in time and lack of knowledge on the genre from Richard Garriot down to the consumer who is logging in for the first time.
A game that was breaking down barriers and trying different things, Ultima [as has been stated many times] has always been about giving the player a nonlinear experience right from the get-go. WoW is not like that at all, in fact, the core mechanics in the game are based on carrot-sticking. Everything in the game is right in front of you but has a “waste X amount of time” attached to it. A game that provides the whole Special Olympics feeling is about as far away as possible compared to UO which gave absolutely NO rewards just for playing, which WoW does. This appeals to ridiculously large amounts of casuals, average gamers, socialites, grinders, etc. Seriously in this context it is difficult to compare the two.
Now, this is not to say that there was never a noob influx for UO, just that the basic reasons for why a noob plays the two games are so radically different that it’s like comparing apples to oranges really. Both fruits but seriously, way different tastes that appeal to different palates.
Lemme explain it like this… UO is roller skates and WoW is roller blades. Or, UO is like surfing in the 50s and skate boarding in the late 80s, early 90s. WoW is like the X Games in 2010 with 20 different sports that have different events. UO is not riding the crest of the modern tidal wave in high tide, it was the first ‘warning’ wave that signalled what was to come.
Now maybe that sounds bleak but it’s just the reality. UO doesn’t have millions of potential customers, it just doesn’t. It won’t. But it could have some potential customers and again, how to pipe them in where they won’t feel overwhelmed [or underwhelmed] can be a finicky and difficult thing to tap correctly over a long period of time [like, say, a server lifespan].
A lot of people think “oh they won’t even know how to move their char w/o WASD” or “oh they won’t even be able to interact with an NPC if it doesn’t have a yellow question mark above its head” or “they won’t be able to leave town without getting raped”
Well, guess what, that’s a part of the learning process. If those three simple experiences make a player not want to play more than an hour [equivalent to reaching level 2 in WoW], then honestly – UO is not the game for them. I strongly doubt that UO is the game for 95% of the gaming population if not more. I would say that even the most successful games of all time, say Tetris or Mario 3, aren’t for more than 25% of the gaming population. People have wiiiiiiiidely varying tastes and there is certainly a cap on potential players for any game; UO just has a much larger cap because of circumstances outside of our control [the year is 2010, competition from much more casual and accessible MMORPGs like WoW, etc].
So how do we RETAIN the 5% of the players who try UO is a wayyyyyyyyyy more important hurdle. Newbie guides? Newbie areas? Advertisement? Buddy referral programs? [Young] status? [New] guilds? [New] tower? A more mature, more considerate starting playerbase [unlike 1.0]? A combination of all? I dunno. I’m not a newbie and I don’t know what newbies look for in random fp2 MMOs. I don’t know what my MMO friends would like in UO – everytime I ask if they’d want to play they just laugh and I give up that lost cause.
Finding potential players for this game is not as easy as picking cotton, it’s not like players are lining up to try the first UO beta or anything. I don’t know if there is a true viable newbie hose for IPY 2.0 in particular and UO in general, not only at this point, but even in the beginning. The game is just not built to hold a new players hand, and maybe THAT is what the odd 5% are looking for in a game. I remember my first day in UO a dozen years ago, and BOY, did I get fucking worked over by any and every possible threat. Did I quit before I got to 51 strength? I dunno, I don’t even think I started my first toon with 50 str [could you even back then?]. Point is, maybe what attracts people to this game is the substantial difficulty it presents from the first time you log in. Maybe this is the entire reason 5% even want to join, and maybe putting in a bunch of things to try and increase it would in fact decrease it. I don’t know, I’m not a statistician nor a UO historian, but I do know that UO is not for everybody, its true “boom” time has lonnnnnnng since expired, and there are many other ways of attracting players besides the obvious ones. It will take some clever design to blindly attract players via visibility, it will take even more clever design to keep them playing beyond their first PK experience in Brit GY, and it will take super-clever design to retain them til end game, and at that point – it’ll take a miracle for them to stay and contribute at the end game. That’s the way it is for every game, more or less, and changing the flow of your IPY 2.0 newbie hose will be an extremely challenging task.
Agreed.
i have to strongly agree with Yaht_Diz, it was the people that played this game for so long that really made UO epic. and still when i run into a guy named kalvasflam, or invasmani in wow or any other game you just seem to share a special bond or mutual respect that you cant find in other games. as for starting off with nothing, the struggle is what makes UO so addictive. i remember playing on origins servers for the first time when the game came out. me and my freind being complete newbs went out of town and tried to kill a chicken. that chicken almost kicked our asses. but we finnaly burned that bitch down. carved her up and carved some kindling from a neer by tree. started a fire and we were ready to gloat in our glory and have a victory feast. needless to say with 0.0% cooking we burnt the meal and were left with nothing. 5 mins after that we saw a pack of people chasing a PK he was dressed in all black plate and he knew what he was doing. we figured we’d try and be noble and help the good guys. we went on a 15 min chase but he cast an earthquake and 5 of the 10 newbs got one hitted. from that point i knew our destiny in this game was to fuck shit up, i wanted to kill lie scam and steal my way to victory. best part about it was that it was allowed. that PK was my inspiration to keep playing this game. it took a while but me and my friends got the nack of the game and started laying some carnage on some newbs. the addiction just got worse from there. now here we are 14 years later with a severly out dated game with the perfect style of game play that is not offered in any other game. this is maybe one of 2 actual sand box games if mortal online pulls it off. but it will still lack the chase, the thrill of the kill working hard and sometimes loosing it all. UO was like online poker it was always on the line. you could bet on yourself with everyting you have and a katana of vanq and still come out a loser. trying to change a game thats 14 years old to appeal to new players isnt worth the waisted time. Original UO one world no holds bars. just re-open the servers and lets have at her, i got some newbs to gank!!! and old the old slade family.
Haven’t read the novel above me yet, but I thought I’d mention that some sort of newbie quest that directs them through some cool spots on the map would be a good idea.
You know, a letter shows up in their pack from some faction of the lore in the world asking him to come see some NPC. NPC tells em to go and save some other NPC held by orcs outside britain, but then someone asks him to kill the NPC instead. Guy gets a choice, some reward for each step and have a multiple stage quest that takes em through a few dungeons, giving skill scrolls and gold each time through.
Make it a tree quest so that it’s not the same each time, give some randomness to the reward so that which path you choose doesn’t really impact the reward too much and teach em a few things about the world, for instance get em to assassinate someone with an explosion and an energy bolt scroll so they learn that important combo.
99% of the playerbase will be people who have already played the game for some period of time. I mean, UO is 14 years old (I think) – we aren’t going to have any complete newbies… IPY has and always will be mostly ‘wolves against wolves’.
I think for the first 6 months nothing should be done to cater to new players, after six months perhaps starting them out with a bit more gold and perhaps implementing a (young) and/or companion system where older players help newbies would be something to implement.
the young system was a very good thing for UO.
tbh i wouldn’t mind if there was a (young) system implemented on launch where you are unable to be attacked until you get to a certain amount of skillpoints… this way people will be able to get to a certain part of the game without griefed to hell and quit, but i imagine there are too many griefers/townkillers that wouldn’t want this.
damnit yaht… I spend way too much of my time reading your posts. Haven’t read that one yet, but my thoughts on this topic are pretty clearly stated (though in improper venues) already.
First, getting a new player interested in playing a game that is this old is going to be a challenge no matter what you do.
I don’t feel ike posting a giant rant again, so the basic idea is that you need to create an atmosphere where newer players don’t feel like they can’t play until they are 7x.
Make the character development more interactive, rather than macroing. Make it beneficial, worthwhile, and entertaining to play the game while you develop.
That is the biggest thing that’s missing from every UO free shard, ever. And I believe that’s one of the largest reasons why they all fail.
Quite simply, the game becomes boring when everyone can macro up any character they want to in a matter of a week. Complete self reliance in a MMO is an absolutely terrible thing, and counter intuitive to the entire reason why people log in to an MMO in the first place.
It’s about interacting. Keep the newbie hose open by showing new players that they can viably interact and participate from the very instant they log in. Not two weeks later when they are done boosting up their energy bills and characters.
Yaht, read your post.
Another thing is that we are not even talking about a mainstream MMO compared to another one. We’re talking about a player run – biproduct of the mainstream game. That’s also quite a bit different.
However, most of what people are assuming here is that there simply aren’t people who are trying out UO for the first time. This is absolutely not true. I see brand new players all the time, even on failing current shards.
Are the numbers smaller in comparison to the people who are trying out newer MMOs? Of course it is. It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise. But that’s proportionally acceptable considering those newer MMOs are built for millions of people, whereas a UO single shard is built for closer to 2500 – 3000 max.
Here’s what I think we should focus to avoid.
“Hey, I heard awesome things about IPY and UO. I’m gonna log in and check it out! the server just relaunched!”
brand new player subsequently logs in expecting to be able to play, and finds 2000 people standing in Britian AFK macroing meditation. Then says, “wow, this game is dumb. No one is even playing.”
Then logs out and never comes back. When his friends ask about the game, guess what he tells them, and guess how many of them try playing. It’s absolutely amazing what word of mouth does for advertizing, both positive and negative for an MMO, especially a freeshard.
Don’t create negative word of mouth from new players. Make their experience (the very first time) positive. You do that by making them feel like (once again) they getto actually play the game when they log in.
i can guarentee if there are 2000 people sitting afk at the bank, hell will break lose and there will be dead bodies everywhere
i really think if you want to broaden this from a range of complete noobs to vets then you need to add in an option for carrot stick at the start just for a little bit and you should add in two books at the spawners for if they are absolutely new it will choose mage or warrior class from choosing one of the books. And some sort of guide for the basics of uo would be good.23
The option to choose mage, warrior, or whatever else is already built in to the game.
New players looking for an MMO to play, are looking for just that. If they are familiar with games that allow them to play from the beginning, and don’t immediately start with the “end game” actually being the standard for what is needed to begin interacting, they will laugh at the development concepts that exist in UO. And they should.
Make development interactive and entertaining. It’s really that easy.
Impportant question that needs answering.
If Bumblebee is sam’s guardian, why the fuck does he make sam spend 4,000 dollars to get him when he was going to go with him no matter what anyway?
What a fucking jerk.
I’m always surprised when I run into someone on a UO freeshard that’s actually new to UO. There really are people out there that get their first UO experience from some random UO server that they stumbled onto somehow. There are two types of these UO newbies. Those who were sucked into it by a friend, and those who were super bored and somehow landed themselves on a UO freeshard.
For the first type not much is required. Their friends will probably help them out at least a little bit and simple things like opening your bank box will be taught. As for the ladder of the two, they could end up completely hopeless without any instruction.
I’d imagine that most of the people who log into IPY all on their own did so by downloading the game through the IPY website. Providing an easily visible “newbies click here” link that provides everything a newbie needs to know is the first step in IPY meets newbie.
That’s all kind of obvious stuff that I’m sure you thought of. Ideas for advertisement? Spam bot I guess :) Find all of the cheap-free-game-dl-and-play-websites that you can and put IPY on the list.
Some sort of “newbie hotline” could be established by encouraging newbies to log into a particular IRC channel. In there questions could be asked and answered and newbie squads could be formed. IRC is becoming less popular these days so perhaps other forms of communication could be used as well. Most UO freeshards have a public ventrilo nowadays.
On the less-basic side here’s an idea I’ve always liked: Inside of the “newbie hotline channel” there would also reside the “police of ipy”. I’ve presented this idea on one of your blogs before so I’ll try and make it short. The police would be players selected by the staff that have demonstrated pvp ability and not-being-an-idiot ability. They don’t have to always win and they need not be knights in shining armor. They would be required to have a reasonable name (no FUK U PKS on the police squad) and behave politely and fairly to all. Even better they would have police names like “Sargeant (insert name)” and could only use approved macros like (HALT, POLIZEI!). Newbies could page the designated “dispatcher” who would then tell the police where to go and who to look for. Police could only attack greys and reds.
The reason I think that the Police of IPY idea is relevant to this blog is because it gives the newbies a little bit of empowerment after they get pked like they definitely will. Getting pked is perhaps the biggest game killer for a lot of people. Even if the police are a bunch of scrubs who get wtfpwned at least the newbies have a voice and someone on their side. I remember being a newbie and the frustrastion of someone pking me. One time I stood at the North Britain Blacksmith (as a dirty little newbie) and proclaimed “if anyone here is a pk come outside of town and fight me!”, I got more than one taker and it didn’t go well.
Ah, spam. Is there anything it can’t do?
Fuck the Police! [F P]
FtP tbh
Why not make all new players up for adoption? :). Every player has a choice to adopt a newbie as their ‘descendant’, and anything the newbie does directly affects their karma/fame also.
I wonder how fun UO would be if they took out magery
300 vs 300 dexxer battles anyone?
Only if I get to adopt HMU.
Bringing on new players is more of a marketing question then a game dynamic question but for the sake of argument I found in CCNGTA I could reduce the “bounce rate” of players logging in, looking around, and bolting if I included more “whizz bang” stuff right out of the gate. Take a page out of most plays and movies and have something exciting happen in the first few minutes to get them hooked.
Luckily you have a legacy that you can springboard off of, launch is going to be very important. Keeping a flow of new players is going to be mulitfront: you’re web team promoting the site, your coders fixing issues and adding features, and your staff constantly involved. WoW’s growth is steady because they have an army of people doing that work.
Completely agree.
In some player run shards when instead of starting at brit bank I started in a newbie area or anything different, it pulled me in quite a lot more than the typical brit bank login.
but logging into ipy 1.0 for the first time to 600 people at the brit inn was just as epic.
true story.
Pre-wipe Britain was unlike anything you’ve ever seen. I bet vendors were buying thousands of fancy shirts every hour.
Replacing the starting empty book with a useful guide that explains how to do basic things like move around, interact with vendors, open your bank box, etc. might be really useful.
Seems like bread crumbs at first glance, but is a really simple and easily implemented idea that has no affect on balance.
Good idea, Dan.
Yeah, simple things like that will work best.
Same vein as the above idea. How about vendors that say the common items they buy. E.g. the tailor says, “Shit, I need more fancy shirts to make my order. Can’t anyone use that loom over there and make some for me?”
Also, what about tradesmen NPCs out in the forest chopping wood? Or along the mountains mining? They could explain how to make a dollar or two at their trade, etc. Little explanations go along way. UO doesn’t have anything to even give a newbie an idea of what to do.
I like this idea. It would create a lot of immersion, rather than having people just wondering aimlessly, doing absolutely nothing. Perhaps they wouldn’t be randomly shouting instructions, but you could say “name help” or something to that effect, and they could explain how to chop wood or explain how to mine and smelt, ect…
The NPCs in UO are poorly implemented. If they actually DID things, it would create an entirely new atmosphere in Britannia. Think of Oblivion, where pretty much every NPC has a scheduled routine; it makes the world feel much more real. As far as MMOs go… I’m not sure how practical that is, but incorporating it to a certain degree would help nonetheless.
As I’m not cool enough to have a Twitter account of my own, I’ll reply to your inquiry about skill gains. I’d make the ‘active’ gaining (ie. slaying monsters and getting scrolls method) take roughly 50-75% the amount of time it took to macro a char up on IPY if you can work that out somehow.
And then for people that take a purely macro approach, have it take something like twice as long as IPY 1.0 to GM a skill.
I like the idea of elongating the time spent in the development phase. There’s just something about going through dungeons fireballing stuff, and barely surviving lich encounters, and grouping up to PK or fight PKs using paralyze and lightning and weapons to kill people. End-game PvP will always be there waiting for us, but start and mid-game has a definite appeal as well.
I would enjoy playing even more if I didn’t have to be 7x, and I’m a vet player
Although its a mixed bag, I’d also like to be able to macro.. Ahh!
You’ll be able to macro. It’ll just be less efficient than playing the game.
Or that’s the goal.
this is how I think the skillgain should be:
Somewhat ‘easy’: Hiding, snooping, musicianship, spiritspeak, typical easy skills.
Medium : All melee skills, stealing, healing (at 70 it becomes ‘hard’)
Hard: Tactics, anatomy, mage, eval, resist, stealth, provocation, animal taming
Very Hard: All crafting skills including poisoning, inscription.
I want to see people pvping with nongm weapons for at least 6-9 months! lol – this makes sure that people actually use lower level magic weapons in the game, which would be amazing to see.
On occasion, I like to view the UO Travelogues website. Today was one of those occasions, and he posted a blog entry that has some relevant information and ideas about how UO could be changed for the better.
http://www.aschulze.net/ultima/blog/blog_20100217.htm
Some of his ideas are really good, others are so-so. I feel he is on the right track for improving Ultima.
Coreball, I read through some of the post you linked. I’m not too involved in game development, but he did a great job of breaking down what works and what doesn’t work for old old games like UO, which I think is really relevant to what is going on here.
Particularly relevant part for us:
“Now imagine what you could achive if you’d take all the broad content of Ultima Online and make it deeper! Take existing land, creatures, features and add intelligence and functionality to them. You would not only improve the quality of UO immensely, but you’d also create something that never has been achieved by any MMORPG. And this would definitely attract a lot of really new players to the game.”
My knowledge of Azaroth’s plan for IPY 2.0 is obviously limited, but it seems like an ideal opportunity to follow through on what the guy is describing. We have an immense resource here; UO has been a part of our lives for the last 10+ years, and while most of us probably don’t have the ability to code new content, we can put our heads together and help Az and his small volunteer team push the game to be something deeper than it would otherwise be.
This probably belongs in the “UO: Renaissance Revisited” post, but I am going to post it here anyways.
I know the idea of localized banking is one that some people really like, and others really dislike. Personally, I feel the implementation localized banking has the potential to add a lot to the old, tired world of Britannia. Since all your stuff would be in a static location, you would need to go to that bank to withdraw and deposit your goods.
Out of this necessity, players, whether they know it or not, are creating communities. These communities are made up of certain guilds, vendors, banksitters, ect., that see each other on a fairly regular basis. Having a recognizable community gives the player a greater sense that the world is alive, and creates new opportunities for exploration; not necessarily geographical exploration, but social exploration.
Additionally, with localized banking, you create the potential for the movement of goods, from one of the aforementioned communities to another. This creates trade routes, shipping lanes, and merchant organizations. Well… I suppose that all hinges on one mechanic – recalling and gating. With recalling, the need for things such as trade routes is non-existent. I am not saying get rid of recalling, however, in a Britannia with local banks, some form of limitations or conditions on the recall and gate spell would have to be put in place in order for these new possibilities to happen.
Perhaps I am alone in this sentiment, and I probably will never see localized banking on a UO shard… but I can dream, can’t I?
I’m just going to set up the Mint of Sosaria and demand all gold coins created are repaid in interest (which you’ll agree to if you want any gold) or I’ll take your account. Then I’ll sell gold on ebay and you’re all more or less just picking cotton for me.
Banking is definitely an area for interesting ideas. I don’t have any time to share mine right now, but I’ll be anxious to read everyone else’s.
coreball…i invite you to read these post by raph koster(Designer Dragon in the original UO dev team). It talks about how animals were meant to hunt etc and why it didnt work.
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/03/uos-resource-system/
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/04/uos-resource-system-part-2/
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/05/uos-resource-system-part-3/
I’ve read that over several times over the last few years, and I’d love to do something like that… but it just seems like it’d cause a lot of problem for not a lot of benefits. It’d be neat to have on a features list, and some players would geek out over it… but for the most part, it’d just annoy people, I think.
Local banking in UO would be useless. Everyone can recall. the “trade routes” would be non existant meaning it would just create large groups of people at lets say brit bank for trading and such and would result in the other cities being deserted.
Personally I hate local banking because it’s just a hassle. To some it might be incredibly immersive and force people into local economies… for others it’s just another hassle. Although it wouldn’t be the end of the world for players like myself since we have the recall spell.
I’ll still always go to Moonglow to buy regs, anyways.
Regarding localized banking -
Doesn’t work in UO. Period. End of story. Completely negated by Recall. Localized banking is best in a very large world map that stratifies the playerbase into localized AREAS, and then creating localized RISK vs REWARD. There is no risk vs reward dynamic in a game that circumvents long-distance travel via an easy spell like Recall. Sorry but this is just the reality of UO. I think localization is a good thing but it’s not really possible in a game like UO. Even if it was implemented, which I really don’t see any actual NEGATIVES, it doesn’t create risk vs reward like is seen in the more recent MMOs.
PS – Noticed hector already hit the “doesn’t work” thing. One positive of localized banking would be an increase in potential item count storage before truly “needing” a house, sort of like how some people have alts just to store stuff in banks, it’d be a similar dynamic. Jyeahhhhhhh.
As far as recalling goes, I did mention that as an obstacle of localized banking. In my post, I said in order for localized banking to be viable, recalling and gating would have to be altered to some degree. How to alter it, I am not certain. Removal would probably be out of the question, but if the spell was somehow conditional, it could potentially work.
Yeah, exactly. For localized banking to work on any efficient level, Recall would have to be tweaked along side. “To some degree” is ambiguous though, and it could have potentially devastating efx. A good idea needs another, they say.
This discussion about localized banking is interesting. I don’t agree that localized banking is impossible simply because long range transportation exists.
Having the ability to appear in 10 locations within a minute is certainly useful, but is it necessary? Could it be reasonable that a player character shouldn’t be able to be affected by recall or gate more than once every 10 minutes, or more than 3 times in a 15 minute period? Is that enough of a deterrent that players would find and maintain associations in specific areas and communities?
Azaroth, based on what you have planned in IPY 2.0, would time-based limitations on magical transportation be suitable?
Just food for thought.
Recall and gate in their current forms are necessary mostly because it’s what people have come to expect – and it’s damn convenient.
It also facilitates PvP (which is where you’d get the loudest whining, as usual). However, you could effectively solve that problem in multiple different neat little ways without creating the problems that come naturally with recall and gate.
For the record, I hate those spells. What I’d hate even more would be the insanity that ensued after removing them.
on a shard with no mounts, running everywhere is an extreme pain in the ass.
the only way that this would work is if you set rules so that recall gate, and/or mark were limited or disabled while in town, making people recall into the outskirts of town.
HOWEVER!!!!
i believe if you made it so that you are not able to recall/gate into town, that people would invest more time staying logged in.
Why is that?
Because I know on divinity, I log in with little or no intention of playing seriously, recall to brit bank, recall to 2 or 3 other places and log out, all within 2 minutes.
Maybe if I had to recall in from outside of town I would
1) stay logged in longer (helps player online count)
2) make the rest of the city look more active to other players rather than spending 100% of my time around the bank
3) maybe I would see someone/something that would keep my attention longer/make me stay logged in.
4) make more people go to bucs den if they want more a convienent banking ‘experience’ – lol
5) more pvp on outskirts of town & bucs den
6) players that are sitting solo in warring guilds would have more notice of incoming ganks.
7) bring more attention to player vendors.
8) seer quests involving monsters would be far more interesting
9) this didn’t happen on IPY very often, but as of late on player run shards, people are opening gates, gating in 5 reds with flamestrike precasted, dropping a person and getting wacked with no recourse, no gate/recall in town would eliminate this griefing tactic.
also I think making it so that reds can’t recall, only gate (although a pain in the ass) means less chance of being pked’ as pk’s are not recalling to 1000 different locations in 10 minutes, now they have to pick their spots more carefully and focus on better places instead of harassing newbies at the moonglow graveyard and jhelom sheep pensb/c of mana regeneration, and if they do, at least they can be persued when blues come ot the rescue.
Yeah issue is tough they would just use a blue scout.
1 char red = all chars red would fix that somewhat.
You don’t have to localize all of the pre-existing banks to create an interesting new banking system. Alternatively, you can create a new bank in a no recall/gate zone that is guarded or unguarded but presents a new balance of risk/reward.
For example, you could have one bank that only accepts gold, but generates interest on your deposits (reward); however, you’d have to carry pack-limit quantities of gold to his location and you might get pk’d along the way (risk). If you were depositing or withdrawing enough gold, you might pay some bodyguards/guildmates to cover you. A stat-loss type system could help police any carelessness on the part of reds.
Risk vs. Reward is one of the most important elements of UO. It’d be nice to introduce this balance to a few more areas of the game.
This is a really cool idea and would create a PvP hotspot. 2% interest rate or something wouldn’t hurt. I think it would be really cool if it was an unguarded Trinsic that hosted the special bank, the big one in the middle of town and no recalling anywhere within the Trinsic guard zone area. Trinsic being a no-recall zone would create riskier (and more rewarding for the victors) PvP there, too. I wouldn’t prioritize this or anything, but it’s definitely an idea worth considering.
@keuse: No offense man but I don’t like your take on recall at all. Recall’s been fine the way it is, sure it does solicit a lot of complaints from people who are stiffed over by it occasionally but for the most part it works as intended. You can disrupt recall like any other spell. Regarding gating, I’ve been griefed by gating maybe a handful of times. I’ve been helped as a new player or ghost by a gate HUNDREDS of times.
UO has to many redundant actions for the sake of time sinking already, making a player recall outside of town and running in to run their errands would be nails on a chalkboard for me. I think I speak for a few people but I like the convenience of being able to hop all around the world in a few minutes to see where the action was at and I didn’t promptly log off, typically I found action. You make the changes to recall like you suggested not only would I be least likely to find what I’m looking for but I’d be more apt to log after to much running around like an asshat and nothing happening.
I think your changes to gate and recall would be damn near game breakers for me.
As you can see, changing the dynamics of Recall even slightly can impact the game so profoundly that it can have a net negative impact by causing people to avoid the game/server completely. Not that “no recall in town” would make people quit or avoid the server in droves, however, it’s an unavoidable fact that people are intimately dependant on Recall for scouting, traveling, and globalization of the server community at large.
Far be it from me to say “YOU MUST DO THIS, YOU MUST DO THAT!” but it’s not a very big stretch to conclude that changing Recall has a ripple effect on many different facets of the game, some that people haven’t even considered yet.
Risk vs Reward is always great to add, the game thrives on it, but causing inconveniences in different areas like Recall just to spice up banking via localization may be too much to bear for some.
Obviously localization is not UO’s strong suit, except in the context of “prime location” for vendor spots, PvM farmer guard houses, house hugging PKs, etc.
I’m really not on either side of the fence, I’ve seen games that are made more enjoyable by localization and seen other games where it was just an obnoxious hoop to jump thru, but I think with some good ideas it could be balanced to work in UO. I dunno, tho…
Don’t anyone misconstrue what I said as a “I fear change” message. I know I’m positively old school but I don’t adhere to that for the sake of tradition but because what I like works well in my eyes. There’s certain elements of UO and any game that are “support beams” to game play. If you jostle, alter, or shoddily replace these elements, shit will rain down on your head. Recall is definitely one of them. Recall is the most popular mode of transportation in UO aside from running.
I hate games that put in annoying processes and call it a game play feature. Its like a bad interface, poor control, annoying menu navigation, or unskipable cut scene. I remember in the old IPY things were added that were from future rulesets like certain NPC’s or silly rares. Problem with the old IPY that made things get stale for a lot of players is the lack of game play evolution. This seems to be what Azaroth is going for in 2.0.
Like I said earlier though, this has to be a very delicate process. I for one know how intolerant player populations can be to change and how important it is for that change to be an improvement because the fickle masses will pick you apart should it turn into a bump in the road instead of a ramp.
It seems like this time around people are more open to the idea of the game evolving to a certain extent, as opposed to looking for “osi accuracy” above all else. Hopefully the population will be willing to make the effort to adjust and adapt, and hopefully the development team will produce appropriate alterations. These are echoes of just about any creative group with a following of people who have enjoyed what that group has produced in the past, but it seems reasonable to have that hope for the group Azaroth is heading up.
THIS. I want the T2A style tank mages that we know and love to be a viable template, full looting, and no mounts. Beyond those three features, I’m up for anything to be added or changed that will make the game more fun.
Note that I’m not advocating these things, but artifacts are fine without item insurance (maybe), UO:R/AOS PvP shit would be fine if it was balanced properly with tank mages, and I don’t mind “neons” one bit, as long as you can lose them when you die and they aren’t ubiquitous.
I guess my point is, don’t touch the most important features of the UO we want to play (which to some includes recall), but on top of that do whatever you can to make the game more interesting and fun.
Launch. Observe dynamics for a while. Come up with a Really Crazy Patch. Followed by A Reprieve.
That’s called beta, I think.
Or, I hope. ;)
Isn’t that how most MMOs are lauched anyways?
Also, what do you mean by map guru?
I can tell you what destard looks like down to the last fire pit. Also for any other questions I can consult the cloth map from the original game box that I carry with me at all times in case I need comforting.
He’s talking about map MAKING.
Hello all. Been following this site for quite some time as I am more then interested in seeing a successful UO server launch.
One thing I’ve read that I totally agree with is the fact that on most if not all player run servers that I have played in the past is that it is far too easy to maximize your characters skills, obtain money and a lot of alternatives to fightining mobs for cash in dungeons.
I know some of these ideas have already been convered and are a bit off topic but increasing skill gain in dungeons / off mobs and decreasing them in housing is a small thing that can been looked at. Many people just wait until they are 7x GM before PvPing, PKing or even leaving their house and actually playing the game. It should take some time to maximize your character and players should be PvPing and dungeon crawling long before they hit 7X GM.
Really what I think is that it will come down to community more then anything else if new players are going to stick around or not. Having the young feature is a very good thing because it will take away from them becomming fustrated after being killed in a dungeon or out in the wild.
Slower macro skill gains will also prevent some people from playing and maybe take away from the large zerg groups that tend to join up, macro a character in a week, fustrate the shit out of people for a month and then quit.
Anyways I like what I see in regards to the ideas and the way people think a server can be improved and I really hope this continues to move forward.